There are as many versions of Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, as there are performances, which in Canada, are almost too many to count over the holiday season. Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s annual performances have a long history. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir has been singing the Messiah choruses with the TSO for 90 years since the 1935-36 season. At this year’s opening performance on Dec. 16, audiences were treated to some unusual variations and two stellar performances from Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley and American tenor, Anthony León.
British conductor Michael Francis is the longtime leader of several notable ensembles including the Florida Orchestra, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego. He brought a real sense of articulation and clarity to this Toronto Messiah. From the very start in the Sinfonia (Overture), a vision of the overall architecture was clear. Cadential endings of musical phrases were carefully punctuated. However, as the performance unfolded, ritardandi (slowing down) at the end of movements sometimes felt overused, resulting in a loss of momentum.
Michael Francis conducting the TSO
Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the TSO
In terms of Francis’s shaping of the choruses, it is always tricky to know just how much effect a guest conductor has in these circumstances. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir will have been rehearsed well in advance of the conductor’s arrival by its own artistic director, Jean-Sébastien Vallée. The ensemble exhibited beautiful homogeneity of tone within its sections, and careful placement of consonants at the beginning and ending of phrases. Handel makes extreme demands in his choruses which require mastery of long, sustained harmonies one moment, and rapid coloratura scales the next. The choir handled all of this almost faultlessly.
In the first half however, there was a sense of brakes being applied to a fault. Tempi were extremely cautious in choruses such as “And He shall purify” and “For unto us a Child is born”. It was hard to know if this was to make things a little less daunting for the singers given the complex melismas in the former number?
The abrupt tempo shift in the final “And the Lord hath laid on Him” section of the famous “All we like sheep” chorus almost ground proceedings to a halt. The pace picked up appropriately for an incisive “He trusted in God”, but was overly drawn out in the final “Amen”. It felt like reverence and grandeur had been confused with slowness.
The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the TSO
As important as Messiah’s choral numbers are, its solo arias are no less central. The TSO assembled a worthy quartet of singers in which the two men stood out. It must be considered a coup for the orchestra to engage the great Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley, one the world’s most in-demand soloists, and just named vocalist of the year by Musical America.
The decision to give him the great “But who may abide” solo proved to be one of the evening’s highlights. These days, it is usually sung by the mezzo-soprano or countertenor soloist, but Finley more than justified the change, delivering its fiendishly difficult quick melismas with technical virtuosity and dramatic fire.
At the end of a long evening, the challenges of “The trumpet shall sound” can be the undoing of even the finest singer. For Finley, its punishing, high tessitura seemed to hold no fears and in fact, he ratcheted things up a notch by adding in even higher embellishments. His tonal quality, technical security and committed delivery are undiminished even after decades in the profession.
Michael Francis, Anthony León and the TSO
Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the TSO
Debuting tenor Anthony León is one of the most-awarded singers of the current generation. He won first prize at the 2022 Operalia competition and was a winner of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. His performance here proved why he has had so much success as of late. A decidedly lyric tone makes him stylistically suited to Baroque repertoire, but unusually, his sound is much warmer than one usually hears in a Handel tenor. León added stylish embellishments to his opening “Ev’ry valley” and like Finley, conquered Roy Thomson Hall’s problematic acoustic with pointed text delivery and tone that carried.
This was American soprano Lauren Snouffer’s second TSO Messiah, having appeared just two years ago. She is an accomplished Baroque stylist, confidently adding all manner of trills and filigree turns to the vocal line. In an unusual bit of programming, Snouffer didn’t get to sing the coloratura showcase, “Rejoice greatly”, with the much less-performed “If God be for us” taking its place.
This no less challenging piece had the added bonus of a violin obbligato gorgeously played by TSO Associate Concertmaster Matthew Hakkarainen. The aria gave Snouffer her best moment with some truly heartfelt, virtuosic singing. Elsewhere she struggled with her breath, breaking up phrases which ideally deserve to be more long-lined.
Susan Platts, Lauren Snouffer and the TSO
Photo: Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the TSO
Canadian mezzo-soprano Susan Platts brought her customary plummy tone and committed delivery. She struggled, though, to project her sound, and repeatedly clipped vowels which hindered audibility. The unforgiving acoustic was not friendly to her soft-grained vocalism. Platts successfully found her legato in the gorgeous lyricism of “He shall feed His flock”.
The TSO Messiah is a grand Toronto tradition and in this context, it was encouraging to see the orchestra experiment with unexpected variations while still offering audiences its favourite moments.
Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Messiah continues at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall through Dec. 21.
