United States Verdi, Mozart, Getty: Rachel Willis-Sørensen (soprano), Jamie Barton (mezzo-soprano), Mario Chang (tenor), Morris Robinson (bass), San Francisco Symphony Chorus (chorus director: Jenny Wong), San Francisco Symphony / James Gaffigan (conductor). Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco. 20.6.2025 (HS)
Mozart – ‘Ave verum corpus’, K.618
Gordon Getty – ‘Intermezzo’ from Goodbye, Mr. Chips; ‘Saint Christopher’; ‘The Old Man in the Snow’
Verdi – Requiem
There was much to appreciate in the San Francisco Symphony’s Verdi’s Requiem, part of the final subscription concert of their 2024-25 season. It featured stellar singing by the soloists and the chorus, and the vivid playing of the orchestra caught most of the composer’s drama. Conductor James Gaffigan, whose career these days focuses on opera, struck a tenuous balance between out-and-out theatricality and reverence to the religious text.
Gaffigan got the assignment because the work, which had originally been planned as the September 2024 season opener with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting, had to be rescheduled. The chorus went on strike over drastic cuts, and it took three months and a $4 million contribution by an anonymous donor to save the chorus with a two-year contract. When the program, which also included three works by Gordon Getty, a composer and financial supporter of the symphony, was re-set for the end of the season, Salonen was unavailable because he had agreed to lead the New York Philharmonic on an Asian tour after his tenure had been scheduled to conclude.
The music director’s job is still open. Gaffigan, currently music director of Komische Oper Berlin and of the Queen Sofía Palace of the Arts in Valencia, is rumored to be in the running. Everyone involved is tight-lipped, but Gaffigan (who has a history here, having been associate conductor from 2006 to 2009) is scheduled to conduct two programs next season, when only Jap van Zweden has more assignments. If anyone in the audience was ‘scouting’, the serious intensity of the performance emphasized the weight and power of the big moments, but the singers found subtlety in the many moments of balm and sweetness.
Verdi’s idea of a Requiem, of course, drew from his palette of theatrical tropes, which often conjured religious moments to leaven the musical and dramatic textures of his operas. Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, tenor Mario Chang and bass Morris Robinson, all veterans of Verdi operas in big theaters around the world, captured his nuances.
The quiet opening was a tender rendering of the ‘Requiem aeternam’ prayer from both the orchestra and chorus, and the ‘Kyrie’ that followed gave a preview of what to expect from the singers as they chimed in one by one and then sang together. Robinson made an impression even before he rose to sing – I was fascinated to watch him quietly sing along with the chorus (something he did throughout, eyes closed reverently). His voice stunned with its richness and gravity.
The contrast with Chang’s sleek lyric tenor was appealing, and Barton’s caramel sound on notes below the staff almost felt like a higher extension of Robinson’s gripping bass. If Willis-Sørensen seemed a bit squally at this point, she more than made up for it with exquisite pianissimos later. Her voice got stronger and surer as the music progressed, sailing effortlessly over the ensemble sound when needed and lavishing soft caresses in solo moments late in the proceedings.
But first came the ‘Dies Irae’, Verdi’s most colorful, operatic and extended innovation in this piece. Gaffigan launched into it with enough venom to shake the rafters. Four trumpets placed above the orchestra added to the brilliance of the ‘Tuba mirum’ fanfares and, when Robinson intoned the ‘Mors stupebit’, we could feel it in our bones, especially on the low notes that end the episode. Barton followed with a sumptuous ‘Liber scriptus’. A true highlight in the ‘Dies Irae’ was a superbly sustained and well-framed ‘Recordare’ in which the soprano and mezzo voices blended seamlessly. With that, Willis-Sørensen’s voice seemed to center, and there was nothing but gold from her the rest of the way. Chang’s ‘Ingemisco’, a showcase for a lyric tenor, was not quite as sweet as might be ideal. The interweaving of all the solo voices in the ‘Lacrymosa’, however, closed the ‘Dies Irae’ chapter wonderfully and brought a sense of dignity to the ‘Offertory’ that followed.
For my taste, the rhythms of the ‘Sanctus’, in which the chorus and orchestra celebrate briefly, could have danced with more abandon, but this brief digression did the job of setting things up for the reverence of the final sections. Willis-Sørensen and Barton got that going by rendering the soft colors in the ‘Agnus Dei’ with glorious a cappella singing, and the give-and-take with the chorus flowed smoothly. A seamless connection among mezzo, tenor and bass made the ‘Lux aeterna’ especially attractive, as was the section in which Robinson’s voice matched the low brass and bassoons.
The finale, ‘Libera me’, which Verdi wrote first, found Willis-Sørensen at her best. She effortlessly met the composer’s demands to sing at the highest and lowest extremities while expressing the fervent prayer in the text. The contrast with the frightening ‘Dies Irae’ music, the essence of Verdi’s drama, could not have been better, and Gaffigan shaped the orchestra into a sense of calm at the end.
The first half of the concert showed off the chorus in Mozart’s brief ‘Ave verum corpus’ and in three reminders of what Gordon Getty has meant to this orchestra and the arts culture in San Francisco. The nonagenarian, well known as a philanthropist, also composed four operas and a long list of works for voice and orchestra, many of them to his own texts.
The orchestra and chorus sounded excellent in the’ Intermezzo’ from Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Getty’s 2021 opera film, which was followed by ‘Saint Christopher’, set to a poem he wrote in his college days. Both pieces leaned on academic aspects, with simple melodies reminiscent of school hymns. ‘The Old Man in the Snow’, the most recent of these pieces, debuted last summer as part of his Old Man Triptych. The longest and the most complex of the three works, it explored adventurous musical aspects and made a satisfying aperitif for what was to come.
Harvey Steiman
Featured Image: Trumpets in the gallery in ‘Tuba mirum’ in Verdi’s Requiem © Kristen Loken