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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Symphony Gives Inspired Performance Of Haydn’s Masterpiece ‘The Creation’

Travis Rivers Correspondent

The Spokane Symphony and Symphony Chorale, Friday, March 1, at the Opera House

Joseph Haydn’s oratorio, “The Creation,” ranks high in the esteem of just about everybody who cares about choral masterpieces.

How odd then that Friday’s exciting, robust performance by the Spokane Symphony, the Symphony Chorale and an excellent team of soloists marked the the first performance of the work in the orchestra’s 50-year history.

This oratorio is the work of a composer with more than 20 operas, a 100 or so symphonies, and a whole library of other music already behind him. Haydn used every trick he had learned to make “The Creation” his crowning achievement.

It combines greater lyric charm, more sonorous nobility and more gentle humor than most conductors can shake a stick at.

From the orchestra’s quietly bubbling primal soup, which introduces the work, to its brilliant concluding chorus, conductor Fabio Mechetti stirred Haydn’s ingredients into an inspired performance. The occasion richly deserved the standing ovation it received.

Soprano Andrea Matthews, a singer whose bright smile carries over into her singing, gave not a sign Friday of the flu-like illness that had kept her from Thursday’s dress rehearsal. She sailed though Haydn’s highly ornamented arias with easy clarity and sparkle, but she could also sing with classic simplicity, as well.

Frederick Urrey’s tenor had a nice ring to its sound, and he sang with an easy-going manner that perfectly suited Enlightenment optimism of Haydn’s style.

I took special pleasure in the dark resonance of Gary Relyea’s bass. And he seemed to take equal pleasure in Haydn’s music, whether it was in sinking to an unwritten low D at the end of the recitative about the creation of great whales or in the bright bounce of his exchanges with Matthews in their Adam and Eve duet.

What makes “The Creation” special, though, is Haydn’s ingenious choral writing. Late in life Haydn discovered the beauty of Handel’s choral mastery, and he was impressed at the multitude of moods the older master could produce through a great variety of choral and orchestral textures.

Randi Ellefson has trained his Symphony Chorale, some 140 voices, to sing powerfully or lightly with excellent diction and secure intonation. The group proved again Friday how valuable its contributions are to the diversity of the symphony’s repertoire.

The new acoustical shell in the Opera House and the new sharply raked risers on which the chorus stood allowed the singers to project their sound better than in most past performances. Only a few of the loudest passages turned blurry Friday.

The orchestra seemed to relish Haydn’s witty and graphic instrumental descriptions of weather and animals - from the violin’s lightly falling snow in Part I, to the groan of the overburdened earth depicted by anguished gasps from the bassoon and contrabassoon later in the work.

The large number of performers on stage Friday did require some electronic reinforcement to give the soloists more presence. But my sampling at various places in the auditorium at Thursday’s rehearsal found the sound still retaining its natural quality even with the slight amplification.

, DataTimes