Dudamel tackles Verdi's Requiem

 
Gustavo Dudamel is back in town, and Thursday night he conducted a magnificently theatrical performance of Verdi’s Requiem that felt like his first real concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. All Los Angeles, of course, knows that last month Dudamel began his tenure with a free event at the Hollywood Bowl, and that was followed by nervous-making high-profile programs in Walt Disney Concert Hall the next week.

But now that the media feeding frenzy has somewhat died down, and he has been away for three weeks, Dudamel has returned to Disney for a month of relatively normal music making. However, relatively normal is, for this young energy source, something devilishly deep and ambitious about every program.

Nor have those three weeks since we’ve seen him been exactly uneventful. Dudamel appeared in Europe and Canada with his Simon Bolívar Youth Orchestra, was named a Chevalier of arts and letters in Paris, selected as 2010 recipient of MIT’s Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts and picked up the Glenn Gould Protégé Prize in Toronto. He also celebrated his Mahler First, recorded live at his opening L.A. Philharmonic concerts, topping the Billboard classical charts.

Expectations, thus, keep rising, and Verdi’s Requiem does not make a small statement. Moreover, this is a work to which Dudamel is relatively new. He has yet to conduct a Verdi opera, and his first Requiem performance was only last May with his Swedish orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony.

But Thursday, Dudamel already seemed an old Verdi hand. He led the grand and intricate 90-minute score for four vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra from memory. He gave a wonderful Italianate shape to Verdi’s vocal writing. He found the source of the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s radiance. He achieved remarkably expressive and vividly dramatic playing from the orchestra.

Verdi was a man of greasepaint, not God; his Requiem is not religion. Its spiritual glow is stage-lit. The dead quake or bliss out operatically. Heaven and hell are décor. But longtime L.A. Philharmonic followers can nonetheless still recall the incense of Carlo Maria Giulini’s rapturous Requiem performances around the time Dudamel, who is 28, was born.

So it was almost spooky how Dudamel managed to tap into the robust, burnished Giulini L.A. sound. He reseated the orchestra closer to the way it was in the Giulini days with the violins to his left and the violas and cellos on the right. He went for richness over detail, although the wind solos, in particular, stood out with loving immediacy.

Dudamel began and ended with a stagy stillness. But if he thought for a moment he might summon up churchly silence before letting the first notes in the cellos miraculously appear out of thin air, he was reminded of the real world in 2009. A cellphone rang. He stopped the performance, waited for silence to return, waited another 15 seconds for good measure, and repeated the magic trick flawlessly.

Many Thursday, no doubt, will remember Dudamel’s extraordinarily visceral Dies Irae, the section in which Verdi summons the wrath of God with startling bass drum and spectacular antiphonal brass. The so-called spine-tingling “chords of doom” shake up any concert hall, but Dudamel went all out and saved the county a great deal of money by providing a useful test of Disney’s seismic reinforcements.

Employing extremes in dynamic range, bringing out orchestral colors and amping up all the dramatic character in Verdi’s late, carefully constructed score, while also encouraging as much emotion as his soloist cared to exude (which was a lot), is not the easiest way to hold the score together. The fact that soprano Leah Crocetto, mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova, tenor David Lomeli and bass John Relyea were loud and characterful, in a properly operatic larger-than-life way, also seemed to suit their conductor.  

Dudamel still may not have found the underlying thread to the Requiem. In Gothenburg, he led a series of inspired moments that only began to merge into a whole by the last of the three performances. But he’s gotten considerably closer to the score’s essence in an original way in a very short period of time. The 90 minutes flew by, an ebbing and flowing of time and feeling that felt altogether natural.

The Requiem ended as it began -- with prolonged silence. In Gothenburg Dudamel explored just how long he could keep an excited crowd quiet, once ending with what seemed like a good chunk of John Cage’s silent piece, “4’33”. In Disney, Dudamel slowly lowered his hands for half a minute. That, like nearly everything else in the Requiem, felt right. It’s nice to know that Dudamel’s hardly resting on last month’s laurels.

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Pre-concert talks one hour before. Limited ticket availability, call (323) 850-2000. http://www.laphil.com.

-- Mark Swed

Photo: Gustavo Dudamel conducts Verdi's Requiem Thursday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[Wolfy]

Verdi's Requiem is an opera in every sense except the name. However, in his review, Mark Swed devotes only 1 sentence out of a 770-word article to the 4 soloists & the chorus, and the rest to rabid gushings of 'Dudamania' -- never mind Verdi's music or last-minute change of tenor soloist. This is ALL about Dudamel's Requiem, not Verdi's. Shame on you Mark Swed. Please stick to symphony concerts; opera is obviously not your forte.

[John H.]

I was there.
It was beyond description almost transcending this world.
I'm sorry the reviewer did not notice Dudamel siliently accompanying the chorus and soloists. I also attended Guilini's concert and was struck by his silient accompaniment of the chorus and soloists.
Both men had this piece in their heart and soul.
This was clearly the equal of Guilini's stunning performance.

[Hernan]

Dear Dudamel fans;

He was in Paris last week, and a video of his entire performance is on the web. He rocked the usually snobbish audience.

http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Dudamel_dirige_le_Philharmonique_de_Radio_France_et_le_Bolivar_Youth_Orchestra/787/

[JtM]

I agree with "Wolfy"... there is an actual orchestra behind Gustavo Dudamel and while he has already done great things as the new music director, it is unfair to all the fantastic LA Phil musicians who are getting very little acknowledgment thus far this season. Furthermore, it would be nice to hear some perspective on Dudamel's interpretation of these monumental pieces past the comparison to Dudamel's own previous performances (and in this case one former LA Phil Music Director). Dudamel is amazing and he is clearly the most exciting classical music news in the world right now, but he isn't the only amazing musician performing in Disney Hall these days.

[Michael Freed]

Thank you, Mark. Many of us in the Master Chorale feel that these are the most artistically satisfying performances we have experienced with the Philharmonic. Many of us had already performed the piece more than once, there was plenty of rehearsal time, and it's obvious that Dudamel loves this work. One correction, though. These performances have been sold out since the day single tickets went on sale. Even high-priced ticket agencies are now 'sold-out.'

[James]

Wolfy is right, shame on you Mark for continuing the Dudamania: where has your insight gone? You're right in that maturity is shown in the through-line and how the dramatic (or traumatic) vignettes do not just tie together but rather congeal to form a complete work, something Giulini had and Dudamel will find/learn in time. I think we've learned it takes a young genius to fire the hall with such passion, but an learned, aged, calm hand to evoke Verdi's intentions and reach the deepest parts of our souls. He'll get there, just give him time.

[A Different Wolfy]

I was there as well. Dudamel was able to conduct the orchestra, chorus, and soloists from memory for the entire 90 minutes without an intermission. It was an exciting and wonderful performance by the conductor, orchestra and singers.

[simonetta]

I was there today, and I couldn't agree more with Wolfy.
Dudamel is irresistible, and we know it by now, but why not spend a few more words to praise the soloists, the musicians and the fabulous chorale! I am Italian, I grew up memorizing every line of Verdi and "melodramma" in general. Every artist in that concert deserved to be mentioned. The soloists were very different from one another, and their strengths needed to be explained. Next time?
Anyway, we heard you all, thank you for your hard work and talent.

Simonetta

[markiejoe]

I was there Sat. night. My two favorite (hear the sarcasm coming) parts were (1) about ten minutes into the piece, a person (apparently one of the brass musicians getting into position up in the balcony) dropped something metal which clanged when it hit the floor, and that was followed immediately with a angry whispered, "Goddammit!" followed immediately by a loud "Ssshhhhh!!!", both of which were, of course, heard clear as a bell all over the hall. So Classy.

Bookending that frightful happening at the beginning of the work was no. (2) at the very end, and I mean the very very end. The piece was done, Gustavo was doing his trick of holding/conducting the silence for several seconds, the audience was enrapt for about two of those seconds when a cell phone when off full throttle down front VERY LOUDLY. Four very loud rings as Gustavo still had his arms up. Couldn't have destroyed the mood ending the Maestro was trying to make more if you had run a bulldozer through the stage door and onto the stage during the final chords. I would have loved to have been seated behind the orchestra so to see the look on Dudamel's face.

But barring those two 21st Century additions to the score, I enjoyed Verdi's Requiem a la Dudamel. The singers were terrific, both soloists and chorus, and the orchestra played with lots of color and shading. Special kudos to the new bassoon principal; he was workin' it. (was he trying out for the position?)

[Silverlakejim]

Second week with our new music director and yet another week of horribly distorted sounds emanating from the stage of the Walt Disney Hall. Having the orchestra play as loud as humanly possible and allowing the LA Master Chorale yell is not what I think of as music making. I have nothing against loud music, but Dudamel pushes all climaxes to "11" creating the ugliest sounds I have heard in Disney Hall.

Quickly bounding from whisper quiet pianissimos to Hollywood action movie decibel fortes is not to be confused with considered and serious music making. Basta... or in Dudamel's case... adios subtlety!

[craigola]

Having only heard of the acclaimed Giulini performances of the Requiem from other people, I was very curious to hear Dudamel conduct this last weekend and to read the reactions of others who remember Giulini. So I was pleased to hear that rich burnished sound that Giulini brought to the orchestra and that others noticed it, too. I thought it was a very satisfying, involving experience. Scattered, nagging reports of the Philharmonic's demise are greatly exaggerated.

We have to do something about the cellphones. There's no foolproof answer but I suggest to Philharmonic goers to get in the habit of reminding the people you're going with to make sure the phone is off. (I know firsthand that even this isn't foolproof).

It's nice to read different opinions but if I had my druthers, I wish some really over-critical kill-joy types wouldn't work so hard at giving Silverlake a bad name.

[john w]

Silverlakejim has it right, but will anyone listen? As the celebrated French general might have said: "C'est magnifique ... mais ce n'est pas la musique."