Choralis Offers an Opulent Yet Intimate 'Requiem'

Washington Post; Monday, July 3, 2006; C03

The 60 singers of the Falls Church-based Choralis, joined by 35 high school student participants in this summer's Choralis Summer Choral Festival program, offered an impressive reading of the Verdi "Messa da Requiem" to a packed house at the Schlesinger Concert Hall in Alexandria on Friday.

This was not your standard full-throttle wallow in Verdian operatic display -- although, particularly in the solos and the "Dies Irae" passages, there was plenty of that. Instead, the most powerful moments came in more personal statements. The chorus danced through the mighty "Libera Me" fugue; the "Sanctus" was light and transparent, and both were considerably faster than most conductors take them.

Artistic Director Gretchen Kuhrmann has trained this big group to sing with the delicacy and transparency of a chamber chorus, and it does this very well. The singers' diction is outstanding and, even with the men outnumbered two to one, the choral balance was fine. Kuhrmann is a no-nonsense conductor. Her forces watch carefully and respond unanimously, and her clarity kept the well-rehearsed orchestra sounding poised and confident.

For the most part, the soloists handled their assignments well, too, although they had very different ideas about the music. Tenor Yoonsoo Shin, cool and accurate, was a reliable anchor in ensemble sections. Bass Thomas Stork, who sang nicely, was perhaps more dramatically wrapped up in the pathos of the Requiem idea than this operatic piece calls for, and mezzo Jessi Baden, who sang with gorgeous opulence, was still able to find a way to blend with Fabiana Bravo's soprano in the "Agnus Dei" duet. Bravo, most committed to the piece's operatic idiom, did many things beautifully (the quiet high B-flat at the end of the "Agnus Dei" comes to mind). She did persist, however, in swooping up to her entrances, which is either a bad habit or an overused cliche.

-- Joan Reinthaler