An oratorio written to accompany a film about a saint provided a gripping experience for a capacity audience Saturday when J. Ernest Green and the Annapolis Chorale, Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and soloists brought Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light and Carl Dreyer's film The Passion of Joan of Arc to Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.
Einhorn's contemporary minimalist music illuminates Dreyer's 1928 film in telling the story of a teen-age peasant girl who helped crown a king and won military victories by obeying the voices of saints directing her. These are the "voices of light" in Einhorn's work.
Film director Dreyer condenses Joan's trial and execution into one day and conveys emotion through close-ups of actors, especially of Melle Falconetti, who plays Joan. Einhorn's score explicates and illuminates Joan's emotions with a profound authenticity that recalls her medieval world through multilingual motets with simultaneous layers of text.
All of the words are sung in the ancient languages heard in Joan of Arc's time. But Einhorn's music also is rooted in our time with its sense of drama evoking our strong response. Melding of sight and sound produces an intense symbiotic union with the music intensifying the film, relating it to Joan's era and ours, making the saint's experience more relevant to us.
Known for his interpretations of contemporary composers such as Arvo Part and Henryk Gorecki, Green triumphed three years ago when the Annapolis Chorale introduced Voices of Light in the region. I'd rate this performance as one of the most powerful I have heard in Annapolis.
The chorale's bright and full sound was augmented to produce a layered richness that was riveting. Before the film appeared on the screen, the 16-sopranos semichorus, now known as "Joan's Chorus," sang a haunting melody a capella, moving us back in time with the music swelling as screen credits appeared. Because we don't know what Joan looked like or sounded like, composer Einhorn used a soprano chorus to represent Joan, and Green used his semichorus of 16 voices. During quiet, intense passages, eight of the young, bright, high voices represented the saint.
The section "Victory at Orleans" was brightened by an instrumental vivacity that contrasted with the later interrogation music. Here, a male chorus sang "Homasse" - "masculine woman" - in an accusatory, fortissimo, sexist taunt. This contrasts with a lighter section titled "The Jailers" that follows.
In the "Pater Noster" (Lord's Prayer) section, a mournful cello accompanies Joan's Chorus representing a prayerful Joan in touch with God. Other sections express aspects of Joan's torture, from the ecstatic "Anima" section to "The Final Walk" that begins with the recorded sound of the Domremy church bell tolling as Joan exits prison and begins her walk to the scaffold.
"The Burning" musically echoes the flames on screen. Finally, "Fire of the Dove" conveys the ultimate realization that a saint has been burned, followed by the epilogue repeating Joan's letter that "God wills it and so it is revealed by the Maid."
Saturday, each soloist seemed divinely inspired by St. Joan. Sopranos Amy Cofield and Carolene Winter captured every essence of Einhorn's masterwork. Baritone Ryan de Ryke brought the high drama of opera to his solo passages, while displaying a range that extended from near-tenor to a sonorous basso profundo. Tenor Andre Bierman brought pure clarity of tone and emotion to his solo passages.
The Annapolis Chamber Orchestra added its dimension, with solo violinist Paula McCarthy providing poignancy to the scene when Joan's hair was cut and cellist Adam Gonzales touching the soul in his accompaniment of Cofield.
Einhorn's score demands much of the conductor, and Green brought meaning and coloration to a vast musical variety. His musicianship enabled him to synchronize the rhythms to the action of the film, while simultaneously coaxing beautiful sounds from his chorus.