Nothing To Do With The Weather

I suppose that I could have played this double cd out of sequence a month or so ago since it does deal, at least in a major part, with the story of the Nativity. It seems to be sufficiently independant of any Christmassy feel to wait its' normal turn off the shelf however. The work in question is the staged oratorio El Nino by John Adams. I'm pretty certain that this is so far the only recorded version with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Kent Nagano, London Voices directed by Terry Edwards, and the Theatre of Voices with Paul Hillier. The impressive soloists are the much missed mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, soprano Dawn Upshaw and baritone Willard White. The work is about the Nativity as already mentioned but woven into that story are more general texts about the miracle of birth with a specific focus on Hispanic America, hence the title which has not climatic connections in this instance. Despite being most definitely an oratorio and not an opera there is drama, particularly in the human reaction of Joseph to the virgin birth, the story of Herod and the flight to Egypt. There are also telling juxtapositions of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod and similar acts of carnage in Latin America, from the conquistadors onwards. Musically, certain remnants of minimalism can be discerned but there is much rich orchestration and lyrical writing too, the final latin lilt of the fading choir being particularly poignant. The solists all convey the depth of feeling admirably.