Religion as Theater: Monteverdi Vespers in Lisbon

Last week I saw the Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 (Vespro della Beata Vergine), done in an exciting performance at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon. I got to know this piece well when I performed it in the 1990s with the San Francisco Bach Choir. It was a thrilling experience then and now. 

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) needs to be better known and more performed in the general classical world. Among other things, this innovative genius wrote the first opera still in active performance (L'Orfeo, 1607), is credited with transitioning music from the Renaissance to Baroque periods, and was the most important composer to establish through bass (basso continuo) as the basis of subsequent musical harmony and composition, replacing renaissance polyphony. His music wasn't performed much after his death (at least until its 20th century resurrection), but his influence continued in Italy, culminating a century later with Corelli and Vivaldi, and also in Germany, from Heinrich Schütz all the way to Bach. We see his portrait by Bernardo Strozzi below. 

His Vespers, composed in 1610 and dedicated to Pope Paul V, was described by the composer as a "Mass for the Most Holy Virgin for six voices, and Vespers for several voices with some sacred songs, suitable for chapels and ducal chambers". So it was a different sort of religious piece, not written for one specific mass or place, but instead performable in a variety of settings. It may or may not have been performed in Venice's San Marco. This innovative piece extended to over 2 hours so was hardly suitable for a normal service. This Vespers is really religion-as-theater, using all the expressive devices of the early Baroque period to illustrate the texts contained in the vespers service. For example, the theatrical opening is a reprise of his opening fanfare for the opera L'Orfeo. Monteverdi's vespers movements are also richly orchestrated with organ, harps, lute, strings, dulcians (proto-bassoons), sackbutts (proto-trombones), and cornetts (trumpet-flute hybrids):

This performance used some excellent spatial effects to simulate what might be done in a big cathedral. For example the opening versicle and response "Domine ad aduvandum me festiva" was done as a procession, with the choir coming up the auditorium side aisles, and an instrumental ensemble playing right in my ear in the center aisle. The outstanding tenor duets "Duo seraphim" and "Audi coelum" were done with the two solo tenors widely separated at front and back of the hall, with one echoing the words and music of the other, rather like a solo voice echoing into the distance. The choir was placed at different locations to add variety to the show: behind the orchestra, in front, and on the side aisles, all typical of the way early renaissance composers used musicians in big churches to make the music (and religious texts) more immediate to the congregation. The sheer theatricality of all this was a big change from the way masses were mostly performed in one position during the renaissance and in much of later religious music. I loved the exuberance of it all. 

While some Vespers recordings try to simulate a complete religious vespers service complete with Gregorian chants, this one focused on just the music Monteverdi wrote. I think this was a good choice, as the written music comes across as more of a celebration based on the vespers rather than a solemn rite. The conductor (here, the excellent Argentinian Leonardo Garcia Alarcon) has to make many choices: how many voices, how big a choir, how many instruments, how to perform the various vespers elements, even what key to sing some pieces in. The choices here were made to create a dynamic performance for the audience, while preserving the baroque performance techniques that have been studied and perfected over the past few decades. So it was a good compromise between period music "authenticity" and 21st century entertainment. Participants included the Gulbenkian choir (about 40 singers), 12-14 instrumental players from the French/Swiss ensemble Cappella Mediterranea, and 9 pan-European vocal soloists (two who came from the choir). I particularly liked the two tenors (Mathias Vidal, Valerio Contaldo), who sang with the precise, slightly nasal quality that projects this repertory well in a large hall. They did great trillos ("goat trills") as well--this vocal ornament preceded the normal baroque trill (rapidly alternating two adjacent notes), instead producing a vocal ornament by shaking the voice rather like simulating a machine gun. The trillo mostly died out after Monteverdi, but the soprano Montserrat Caballe used it occasionally late in the 20th century when singing Bellini's Norma. We do know how the trillo should be done, since it was sometimes written out, as you can see and hear in this clip.

Overall, this was a thrilling performance, with an emotive theatricality in setting a religious text which reminded me of Verdi's Requiem of nearly three centuries later. We need more performances of this pathbreaking and brilliant work.