Yes, of course Bach would have composed an opera if the opportunity had presented itself. But the Thomaskantor had to stick to the sacred, for example a St. Matthew Passion, which reliably fills the concert halls on Good Friday. In the Isarphilharmonie, the crowds gather around the Munich Bach Choir and Collegium Vocale Gent, who, despite all the tangible differences, start from the same premise. For her, Bach’s Passion is, if not an opera, then a veritable tragedy and requires a well thought-out dramaturgy. Hansjörg Albrecht and Philippe Herreweghe both do justice to this in a convincing way.
But where Albrecht aims for direct expression and visualization, Herreweghe seeks the considered comment – his passion is reflectively cushioned with cautious curiosity, appears as a precisely proportioned sequence of images of a passion altar. Thus the Collegium Vocale Gent sings the chorales with homogeneous beauty, any roughness sanded away by Herreweghe’s fluttering rubbing movements. Albrecht, on the other hand, encourages his choir from the harpsichord (standing!) to ever more drastic expression, which does not shy away from dynamic extremes. “If I should ever part,” breathe the people of Munich immediately after Christ’s death on the cross. The choirs receive cues from the evangelists appropriate to them.
In terms of soloists, the Belgian ensemble may have a slight edge
Daniel Behle articulates with such commitment and urgency as if he were standing in the Garden of Gethsemane himself, while Reinoud van Mechelen reads the story with well-dosed, irresistible melancholy: I’ve told it to you ninety-nine times, and even the hundredth will end badly. His warm tenor corresponds to the lean, flexible ideal that the original Flemish sound ensemble aspires to. One makes music here freely, fluently, and lets things happen. Such theatrically effective effects as the Munich ensemble uses with pinpoint accuracy do not occur here. Because when it comes to sin, death and the devil, Albrecht lets the bows jump and the strings bang. He only acts cautiously when he accompanies his soloists, for example the excellent Steve Davislim. In the arioso “Oh pain” the accomplished opera tenor expresses real outrage.
Nevertheless, when it comes to soloists, the Belgian ensemble may have a slight advantage, because it is rare to find such a gifted baroque soprano as Dorothee Mields. Few can match her in intimacy and joy of proclamation with unobtrusive vocal precision. When she sings “I want to give you my heart” with a soft smile, you can’t help but feel addressed to yourself. The countertenor Tim Mead is her equal, his “Have mercy”, sculpted and contritely executed, is one of the highlights of the Ghent St Matthew Passion.
It is as if Walter Benjamin’s classic text to the baroque tragedy should be filled with new life with these performances, because Bach’s St. Matthew Passion becomes a musical tragedy through these eminent musicians. That is to say: a mourning play, a play of mourning and a play for sad people who, in miserable times, standing in the ruins of their world, turn to the performing arts to find meaning. In any case, they stand in the ranks of the Isarphilharmonie to applaud two gripping perspectives on Bach’s passion work.