Paradise found in Haydn’s ‘Creation’

MUSIC REVIEW

October 24, 2011|By Jeffrey Gantz, Globe Correspondent

Soprano Amanda Forsythe (here performing earlier this year) was one of… (KAYANA SZYMCZAK FOR THE…)

BOSTON BAROQUE Haydn”s “The Creation””

At: Jordan Hall, Friday

Completed in 1798, Franz Joseph Haydn’s “The Creation’’ wasn’t his last major work - he finished his other great oratorio, “The Seasons,’’ in 1801 - but it is the climax of his long composing career, a paean to the Divine Order that, painted in the primary colors of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, celebrates God’s creation of the universe and of humankind, drawing on the initial two chapters of Genesis and also Milton’s “Paradise Lost.’’

First presented in Vienna just seven years before Beethoven’s “Eroica,’’ it could be seen as the Enlightenment’s last hurrah. The libretto Haydn set was in German; the work - whose original title is “Die Schöpfung’’ - is usually presented in English to English-speaking audiences, but the German text fits the music better, and that’s what Boston Baroque and its artistic director, Martin Pearlman, chose for their performances this weekend at Jordan Hall.

Pearlman had a stellar lineup of soloists: soprano Amanda Forsythe as Gabriel, tenor Keith Jameson as Uriel, and bass baritone Kevin Deas as Raphael, the three archangels who outline the first two-thirds of the story in bare-bones recitative and then flesh it out in rapturous arias about a time when no note of sadness yet sounded in the nightingale’s song. The last third is devoted to Adam and Eve (Deas and Forsythe doubling in those roles), who thank the Creator for their paradise and have no thought of the serpent to come.

There’s not a lot of conflict here, and the work has been known to drag, but on Friday Pearlman kept it moving in a performance full of dramatic contrasts, vibrant colors, and poetic feeling. Jameson was a youthfully earnest Uriel, by turns callow and authoritative. Forsythe was an operatic, full-voiced Gabriel and a sly, seductive Eve whose voice dropped to nothing when she pledged “obedience’’ to Adam. Deas added to his deep, resonant voice a welcome grace and vulnerability. The trio blended well, too. The chorus wasn’t exemplary in its diction (and the dark hall made reading the program libretto difficult), but it had so much energy and point, and its fugal lines were so clear, that the words hardly mattered. The orchestra sang here, danced there, and everywhere reveled in Haydn’s picturesque details.

It all augured well for Boston Baroque’s upcoming recording of “The Creation.’’

Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.