Star rating: *****
FOR all the glories in the SCO's staggering performance on Friday night of Mendelssohn's Elijah, conducted by the young French-Canadian star Yannick Nezet-Seguin, and cast with a world-class ensemble of soloists, an SCO Chorus at its most powerful, and an orchestra whose blazingly concentrated playing would have stood proud in any concert hall in the world, the most vital aspect of the performance was that it raised a question: why do we think of Elijah as we do?
Why do we dismiss it? Why has it become almost a joke, thin in inspiration, over-weighty in pronouncement, treacly-thick in texture, bulky in its mass, ponderous in its momentum, four-square in its rhythms, dull in its harmonic colouring and, for the most part, lying heavy in the waters of music?
These are some of the conventional prejudices against Mendelssohn's late oratorio. And do you know what this young genius of a conductor did on Friday with his magnificent battalion of vocal and orchestral musicians? In a performance of unremitting focus, unwavering clarity and absolute assuredness of purpose, he demolished all and more of these prejudices; blew them right out of the water, he did, sending all of us who think about music scuttling back to our preconceptions.
This was Elijah reinvented and rediscovered; a dramatic journey through anguish and despair to radiance and serenity, projected through the wondrous voices of some of the best singers in the world, soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo Karen Cargill, tenor Andrew Staples, bass Jonathan Lemalu, with the SCO and its chorus performing as though there was no tomorrow.
Well there is a tomorrow, and a re-assessment of Elijah has to be high on the agenda after this extraordinary revelation.
