≈ 2 hours and 30 minutes · With intermission
Handel’s Messiah is certainly one of the most popular choral works of all times. The magnificent music by Handel is as divine as it is earthy and direct, and very characteristic of the genius of the great German composer. There are many legends and anecdotes regarding this oratorio, which exists in several versions. All these versions were authorized by the composer, proving that Handel was a practical man, a man of theatre, who was always able to make the best out of his available “ingredients.”
Last updated: December 6, 2018
The NAC Orchestra first performed Messiah in December 1970 led by Mario Bernardi with soloists Pauline Tinsley (soprano), Maureen Forrester (mezzo-soprano), Seth McCoy (tenor) and Donald Bell (bass-baritone). The Orchestra has performed it almost every December since then.
Chorus
Choristers from:
Cantata Singers of Ottawa (CSO)
Capital Chamber Choir (CCC)
Ewashko Singers (ES)
Rehearsal Pianist: Claire Stevens
Chorus Manager: Andi Murphy
Soprano
Donna Ager (ES)
Kristi Aruja (CSO)
Rosemary Cairns Way (ES)
Nadine Dawson (CSO)
Valerie Douglas (CSO)
Maura Forrest (CCC)
Deirdre Garcia (CSO)
Jennie Glassco (CCC)
Cait Hurcomb (CCC)
Sharon Keenan-Hayes (CSO)
Allison Kennedy (ES)
Sumin Lee (CCC)
Erica Loughlin (CSO)
Ilene McKenna (ES)
Jessyca Morgan (CSO)
Colleen Morris (CSO)
Christine Muggeridge (ES)
Sophia Nickel (CSO)
Cathy Patton (CSO)
Julie Payette
Aude Pull (CCC)
Kristina Roudiy (CSO)
Hannah Searson (CCC)
Mackenzie Stone (CCC)
Nicole Van Oosten (CCC)
Anna von Holtzendorff (CSO)
Alto
Barbara Ackison (CSO)
Wanda Allard (ES)
Pat Beckett (CCC)
Trish Brooks (CSO)
Judy Brush (CSO)
Elizabeth Burbidge (ES)
Vickie Classen Iles (CSO)
Janet Cover (CSO)
Nichole Ekkert-Vine (CSO)
Ellie Glantz (CCC)
Carolyn Greve (CCC)
Rachel Hotte (ES)
Pein-Pein Huang (CSO)
Eileen Johnson (CSO)
Caroline Johnston (ES)
Grace Mann (CSO)
Janessa Mann (CCC)
Jessica McClay (CCC)
Andi Murphy (CSO)
Reba Sigler (ES)
Topp Tolson (ES)
Caren Weinstein (ES)
Diana Zahab (ES)
Mary Zborowski (ES)
Tenor
Gary Boyd (CSO)
Cameron Climie (CCC)
Christian Damus (CCC)
Dorian Gerdes (CSO)
Louis Jacques (CCC)
Ross Jewell (CSO)
Mann Karl (CSO)
Philip Klaassen (ES)
David Lafranchise (ES)
Grayson Nesbitt (ES)
Demetry Prezelj (ES)
Aaron Shenkman (CSO)
Aidan Shenkman (CSO)
Bass
Wallace Beaton (CSO)
Mike Bulthuis (CSO)
Phillip Burness (CCC)
Grant Cameron (ES)
Erik de Vries (ES)
Mark Dumbrique (CSO)
Alain Franchomme (ES)
Andrew Hodgson (CSO)
Greg Huyer (CSO)
Björn Johansson (CSO)
Nathan Maclean-Max (CCC)
Christopher Mallory (CCC)
Kevin Marimbu (ES)
J.P. McElhone (CSO)
Ronan Pouliquen (ES)
Peter Reilly-Roe (CSO)
Stephen Slessor (ES)
Madox Terrell (CCC)
Mike Vanier (CSO)
Paul Whiteley (CCC)
John Young (CSO)
Repertoire
Messiah, HWV 56
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
Born in Halle, February 23, 1685
Died in London, April 14, 1759
“Handel’s Messiah is more than a piece of music; it is a monument of Western civilization which has, across the two and a half centuries since it was written, acquired the status of a myth.” These words of the British critic and historian Nicholas Kenyon suitably summarize the view of Messiah in the West, for few works in the entire history of music have engendered such widespread appeal through inspirational beauty. If “the characterizing trait of all authentic masterpieces is their capacity for infinite self-renewal,” as critic Lawrence Gilman once observed, then Messiah rests securely fixed as a gleaming star in the firmament of masterpieces. Surely it represents the single best-known and most often performed example of oratorio.
Messiah’s continuing overwhelming popularity, which extends back to Handel’s own time, would have surprised its creator. He regarded himself first and foremost as a dramatic composer, which meant a writer of operas, and it is chiefly for opera that he would expect to be remembered today. For over two decades, Handel was lionized as the greatest of English composers (despite his German birth and Italian training), and Londoners flocked to see his forty-plus operas produced between 1711 (the year of his arrival in London) and the late 1730s. But the fickle public grew tired of opera, and by the mid-thirties it was finished as a popular draw. Something new was needed to attract the public, something perhaps uniquely English.
Handel rose to the occasion by creating the English oratorio, beginning with Esther in 1732 and continuing over the next quarter century with 22 more. These works used English (not Italian) texts, and drew their subject matter mostly from Old Testament stories, with which the English particularly identified. The oratorio as Handel fashioned it was essentially an unstaged drama employing all the same musico-dramatic ingredients of opera: recitative, arioso, aria, solo ensemble, chorus, and dramatic characterizations, but without the trappings of sets, costumes and physical movement. Additionally, the role of the chorus was raised to far greater importance in oratorio.
The idea for Messiah (Handel’s autograph manuscript bears no article) came from Charles Jennens, a musical amateur and something of a literary figure, with whom Handel had worked on other choral works. Drawing nearly all his texts from Old Testament sources (principally the Authorized English Bible of 1611), Jennens fashioned a meditative framework in which the whole of Christ’s life and work is laid out: the prophecies of His coming, His birth and the subsequent rejoicing, His life, the Passion, Resurrection and hope for His Second Coming.
The first performance of Messiah took place on April 13, 1742 at Neale’s Music Hall in Dublin. It was a stunning success, but subsequent performances in London during the next few years met with cool reception. Then, in 1750, it caught on, and from that year its popularity never slackened. Handel died nine years later, eight days after his last public appearance at a Messiah performance. But Messiah continued to live, to grow, in fact, to assume monstrous proportions.
The concept of Messiah as musical myth, as something larger than life, took hold at the first great Handel Commemoration in 1784, where the chorus numbered 275, the largest choral force ever assembled for a single performance to date (most performances in Handel’s lifetime employed a chorus of about twenty), and an orchestra of 250 assisted. The inflation continued throughout the nineteenth century. In 1843, the Musical Examiner asked, “Who ever heard of a choir too large for Handel?” Apparently few had, for in 1857, Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society gave a performance with somewhere between 600 and 700 voices. Two years later, at the Great Handel Commemoration Festival marking the centenary of the composer’s death, we find a chorus of 2,765 and an orchestra of 460. For Boston’s Grand National Celebration of Peace in 1869, the “Hallelujah Chorus” was performed by a staggering force of 10,000 voices and 500 instrumentalists.
Now the pendulum has swung again in the opposite direction. Over the past several decades, modern scholarship has emphasized the relative paucity of performing forces in Handel’s day, and there have been numerous recordings and live performances that adhere to one or another versions of a score that Handel used. However, it is appropriate to remind ourselves at this point that there is no such thing as an “authentic” Messiah. Nor can we speak of a “definitive” version or a “complete” version. Right from the date of completion of the score in September 1741, until Handel’s death 18 years later, the composer constantly revised, altered and modified Messiah in accordance with the exigencies of individual performances. These changes took the form of transposing numbers to suit the range of the vocal soloists, omitting numbers entirely if they proved too difficult, abridging them if time were a factor, rearranging them for reasons of pacing, inserting additional material, inflating the choir, incorporating extra orchestral instruments, and so forth, much as a Broadway show today is subjected to the same process.
Like other Handel oratorios, Messiah is divided into three parts. Part I tells of the coming of Christ as related in Old Testament prophecies. His birth is announced, again in Old Testament scripture (“For unto us a Child is born”), and an angel tells shepherds in the fields the good tidings. Peace on earth and the redemption of humankind are at hand.
Part II speaks of the Passion, Resurrection (again, almost entirely through Old Testament prophecy) and the spread of the gospel. The great vision of Christ’s triumph and glory is revealed in the concluding “Hallelujah Chorus” to words from the book of Revelation.
The theme of Part III is announced by the soprano’s words, “My Redeemer liveth… and shall stand at the latter day upon the earth” – an expression of faith in redemption and rebirth symbolized in the view of Christ’s Second Coming. Messiah’s final vision, in a setting of unsurpassed musical grandeur, is that of Christ, the Lamb of God, sitting on the throne in all eternity.
In conclusion, the words of former Cleveland Orchestra annotator Klaus G. Roy provide a fitting commentary on Messiah’s near-mythic role in our lives: “Handel’s Messiah seems to be, like nature itself, unchangeable yet ever-changing. It has been produced in versions almost too numerous to count, in abridgements, in expansions, in contemporary dress both stylish and styleless, in auditoriums acoustically perfect or ludicrously inappropriate, in little churches and in vast cathedrals. It has put up with presentations that observed the letter and lost the spirit and with many more that somehow found the spirit without observing more than a minimum of the letter. To some it has represented religion personified; to others, religious art, and to yet others, art. For some it has been made hateful by distortion, by overuse, by sheer boredom. For others it has been the one art work the regular ‘consumption’ of which was their primary contact with great music. And for still others who had avoided hearing it until – in their view – conditions were likely to be right, it has proved revelatory. All these things, and more, Messiah has been and continues to be. It takes a work of extraordinary substance to exert such perennial power over humankind.”
By Robert Markow
Artists
Greek conductor George Petrou enjoyed a successful career as a concert pianist before gradually turning to conducting. He now has a flourishing international career and is currently considered as one of the world’s leading Handel specialists. From 2022, he will be the Artistic Director of the Internationale Händel-Festspiele Göttingen. He regularly collaborates with renowned orchestras in a very wide repertoire, ranging from baroque to contemporary music. He is the Artistic Director of the renowned Athens-based orchestra Armonia Atenea, which tours and records extensively, performing on both period and modern instruments. This evening’s concert marks his debut leading the NAC Orchestra.
George Petrou is a very active opera conductor with an emphasis on historically informed practices, not only in baroque music but also in later repertoire. He is a regular guest of major opera houses and has lately developed an interest in staging, having signed several successful productions of musical theatre and opera.
George Petrou has released many recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and MDG labels. His recording of Handel’s Tamerlano for MDG received the prestigious ECHO Klassik award in 2008, and Handel’s Ottone, released by Decca, was nominated for a GRAMMY®. The French government awarded him the title of “Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.”
Recognized for her unique artistic curiosity in world-class performances spanning the music of Monteverdi and Hasse through to György Ligeti and George Benjamin, Lauren Snouffer is celebrated as one of the most versatile and respected sopranos on the international stage.
Concert highlights this season include Bernstein’s Candide with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, a program of Haydn and Mozart with Bernard Labadie and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, Messiah with the Cleveland Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, and the present debut with the NAC Orchestra. Lauren Snouffer’s schedule has yielded marvelous collaborations with many of the world’s most distinguished conductors and orchestras including performances with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra, Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic, Cristian Măcelaru and the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Krzysztof Urbański and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Markus Stenz and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Marin Alsop and the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo.
An impactful discography includes Hasse’s Siroe and Handel’s Ottone with George Petrou for Decca, Gottschalk’s Requiem for the Living with Vladimir Lande on Novona Records, Grantham’s La canción desesperada conducted by Craig Hella Johnson on Harmonia Mundi, and Feldman’s The Rothko Chapel with Steven Schick for ECM.
Canadian-Korean countertenor David DQ Lee is fast establishing an enviable reputation among countertenors of his generation. He has won prizes at many international music competitions including the Francisco Viñas Competition in Spain, George London Competition in New York City, Musica Sacra International Competition in Italy, Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium and Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
With repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary and jazz to New Age, David DQ Lee has performed at La Scala in Milan, Komische Oper Berlin, Theater an der Wien, Teatro Real in Madrid, Liceu Opera in Barcelona, Chicago Opera, Semperoper in Dresden, Zurich Opera House and more. He has appeared at the Ravinia and Aspen music festivals, as well as the Beaune Baroque Opera Festival in France, to name just a few.
Having made his NAC debut in 2015 with the world premiere of Ana Sokolović’s Golden slumbers kiss your eyes…, David DQ Lee continues to sing this work with the NAC Orchestra. He can be heard performing it with the Orchestra on their New Worlds recording released by Analekta in 2018.
The Cantata Singers of Ottawa (CSO) is well known regionally and across Canada. Founded in 1964, this choir of approximately 40 voices has distinguished itself in performance of music of many styles and musical periods, from early music to minimalism, both a capella and with orchestras and small ensembles.
The choir aspires to perform choral music to the highest standards, promotes choral music in Ottawa, and supports Canadian musical talent by commissioning Canadian composers, engaging Canadian musicians, and offering scholarships to young Canadian singers. Under Artistic Director Andrew McAnerney, CSO presents an annual concert series, with programs spanning a wide-ranging repertoire both in time and style. In every season, the choir includes works composed by women and Canadians.
CSO has been an invited guest artist almost since its formation. With the exception of the COVID period, it has performed annually with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) and under the baton of every NACO artistic director since the opening of the NAC in 1969. In addition, the choir has sung NACO concerts led by other internationally renowned guest conductors. CSO performed on NACO’s 2019 JUNO-nominated recording New Worlds, singing Ana Sokolović’s composition Golden slumbers kiss your eyes.
CSO has sung in major Canadian music festivals such as Festival de Lanaudière and Festival of the Sound and has partnered with well-known Canadian choirs, such as Pro Coro Canada of Edmonton, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and St. Lawrence Choir to present joint concerts. Thanks to numerous CBC and Radio Canada broadcasts, the choir is well known across Canada.
The Capital Chamber Choir is an auditioned ensemble of advanced singers from the National Capital Region. The choir and Artistic Director, Jamie Loback, are committed to bringing a diverse range of choral music—in particular, modern, Canadian, and local works—to audiences through high-caliber and engaging performances. Founded in 2009 by Dr. Sara Brooks, the choir is a true collaboration, emphasizing the importance of collegiality in generating an integrated choral sound.
For the past 10 years, Artistic Director Jamie Loback has guided the choir through increasingly ambitious seasons and projects. He holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Ottawa and is a sought-after conductor and music director for several organizations in the city. He is dedicated to fostering inspiration, enthusiasm, and creativity in the next generation of choral musicians, and is a passionate advocate for contemporary choral music.
Each season, CCC presents its own concert series in addition to undertaking collaborative projects with other musicians. The choir has collaborated with notable ensembles including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra, Elmer Iseler Singers, and Canadian Chamber Choir and has hosted masterclasses or performances with composers including John Rutter, Morten Lauridsen, Ola Gjeilo, and Ēriks Ešenvalds.
CCC released its all-Canadian debut album, The Delight of Paradise, in April 2017. In 2018, the choir performed a Spotlight concert in St. John’s, Newfoundland as part of the Podium Choral Conference & Festival. CCC won second prize in the Mixed-Voice Adult Choirs category of the National Competition for Canadian Amateur Choirs in 2019 and was invited to perform at Rideau Hall for recipients of the Order of Canada.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to live performances in 2020 and 2021, CCC took advantage of the break to record two series of video sessions on YouTube. The choir re-emerged on stage in Fall 2021 looking forward to a full season programme including Canadian premieres of innovative international works and a return to the NAC stage.
Formed in 1992 for a live broadcast marking 50 years of Radio Canada International, Ewashko Singers has developed into one of the most flexible vocal ensembles in the National Capital Region.
From Beethoven, Mahler, and Verdi to Richard Rodgers and Howard Shore, they skillfully perform music across a wide range of genres and languages. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Laurence Ewashko, Ewashko Singers regularly highlights Canadian composers and showcases young Canadian talent. In addition to their own concerts, they often collaborate with other local choirs and music ensembles. Recent highlights with the National Arts Centre Orchestra include the JUNO Award–winning live recording of Ana Sokolović’s Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, and Harry Somers’s opera Louis Riel as part of Canada 150 celebrations.
Former conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and Cantata Singers of Ottawa, Laurence Ewashko celebrates his 32nd season of choral activity in the National Capital Region. As a choral clinician, vocal coach and adjudicator, he makes a significant contribution to the quality and appreciation of vocal music in Canada and abroad. Laurence has prepared choruses for many prestigious conductors, and he regularly does so at the National Arts Centre.
A Full Professor of Choral Studies at the University of Ottawa, he conducts the School of Music’s two choirs. Laurence is a recipient of the prestigious Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting and numerous awards from the Canada Council of the Arts.
Tobi Hunt McCoy is enjoying another year as Season Stage Manager with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. McCoy stage managed Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Christopher Plummer in 2001 and Colm Feore in 2014. For the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra she co-produced the 1940s Pops show On the Air with Jack Everly, a show they had co-produced in 2007 for the NAC Orchestra.
Last season, Hunt McCoy made her Southam Hall acting debut in the role of Stage Manager in the Magic Circle Mime Co.’s production of Orchestra from Planet X. Additional professional duties have included aiding Susanna and the Countess in schooling the Count and Figaro on the finer points of marital love during The Marriage of Figaro; keeping her eyes open (for the first time ever) during the flying monkey scene in The Wizard of Oz; mistakenly asking Patrick Watson for proof of identity backstage; holding her breath while marvelling at the athletic ability of the cast during Cirque à Broadway; and cheering on Luke and Princess Leia with Charlie Ross, Émilie Fournier and Erik Ochsner during the Star Wars Pops concert.
In her spare time, Tobi Hunt McCoy loves teaching English, Drama and Library at Lisgar Collegiate Institute.