“O Fortuna!” Amid controversy, the Back Bay Chorale closes season with a stellar “Carmina Burana”
Stephen Spinelli led the Back Bay Chorale in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana Friday night at Symphony Hall.
Symphony Hall was ablaze with music, dance, and poetry Friday night as the Back Bay Chorale, in collaboration with the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and the Boston Children’s Choir, performed Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana to celebrate the organization’s 50th anniversary. Under the baton of music director Stephen Spinelli, the ensemble tackled this 75-minute medieval collection of songs that are at once romantic, comical, and satirical with fervor and game commitment in the chorus’s final event of the season.
The event proved controversial even before the downbeat. The Boston Musicians Association (BMA Local 9-535) posted an open letter earlier this week criticizing the Chorale for using unpaid student musicians in the orchestra for this event. The union’s Facebook post elicited several comments, pro and con, before the comments were turned off on Wednesday. BBC board chair Craig Hughes responded to the union by releasing their own open letter stating that the organization has often paid musicians for past events while also striving to support and showcase opportunities for talented music students as with Friday’s Orff concert.
Even those unfamiliar with Orff’s orchestral-choral extravaganza have heard the “O Fortuna” opening in countless commercials and films. Opening and closing with this piece with intense orchestration as well as the elegant dancers for this performance.
The evening also showcased nine soloists, several of whom were overshadowed by the force of the orchestra. A few were of particular note, including oprano Nicole DiPasquale. Performing the night before her senior recital, DiPasquale’s voice was crystalline, lulling the audience with operatic power and hypnotic expression.
Baritone Michael Hanley was equally impressive. His command of “Estuans interius” was extraordinary, delivered amid full orchestration replete with a vociferous chorus.
When Timothy McReynolds stood downstage with a sash that looked like a dead chicken, the audience went from thinking they were witnessing a fashion faux pax to understanding the joke as the countertenor sang his lament of the roasted swan.
Under Spinelli’s attentive and stoic direction, the singers of the Back Bay Chorale delivered harmonious synchronization, singing with cogent vigor, their voices blending elegantly. They were able to retreat into moments of subtle and quiet ensemble vocalism before rattling the rafters again with full fortissimos.
The students of the Boston Conservatory Orchestra providing well-synched dynamics, giving full expression to the drama along with the chorus. Their contribution was pensive and thunderous by turns, and the assemblage of undergraduate and graduate students propelled the score like seasoned professionals.
The cadre of young dancers personified the drama. At times their costuming reflected a modern jazz motif, at others a 1980s MTV music video. Employing minimalist props, they juggled, executed basic acrobatics with hula hoops, and hoisted beer steins during “In taberna quando sumus” intimating a drunken revelry that combined free style dance with overtones of hiphop and a Russian Tsyganochka.
Unfortunately, only those in the balcony could get the full effect of the choreography, due to the venue’s limited sightlines.
John Tamilio III is pastor of the Congregational Church of Canton, a professor of philosophy at Salem State University, and a professional guitarist who plays for the Boston-based classic rock band, 3D. An aficionado of classical music, particularly the Baroque era, Tamilio has also written on philosophy, heology, and T.S. Eliot. He resides in Beverly with his wife Cynthia.
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