In Performance: Bach Festival opens

Web-only review:

Slightly Undercaffeinated "Coffee Cantata" Opens Local Bach Fest
By Joan Reinthaler

The "Coffee Cantata" and the "Peasant Cantata" were the closest Bach ever came to dabbling in opera. Spoofs on cultural foibles of 18th-century Germany, they are full of the upbeat gaiety that infects settings of even some of his most didactic texts. It was a semi-staged performance of the "Coffee Cantata" that anchored the first performance of this year's six-concert Bach Festival at Georgetown's Grace Church on Sunday, with forces (three singers and five instrumentalists) ideally suited to the church's intimate, acoustically warm space.
(read more after the jump)

A tale of generational disconnect, the cantata features Herr Schlendrian (Mr. Stick-in-the-Mud), sung by baritone Brian Ming Chu, trying to convince his teenage daughter (soprano Soo Young Kim Chrisfield) to give up drinking coffee. After she brushes aside all his threats, in exasperation he tells her there will be no husband for her until she comes around. She does, but (in an aside) promises to only marry someone who will allow her her coffee. It's a piece full of cheerful Bachisms and, while both singers acted their roles delightfully, only Chu was fully up to the music's vocal demands. Tenor Trent Goldsmith, the narrator (who functioned like the Evangelist in Bach's "Passion" settings) struggled with his assignment.

The first half of the program included a set of seven short Choral Preludes played with intelligent restraint by Francine Maté on the church's wonderful baroque organ; an agile but rather cold reading by Charlie Powers of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G; and the second movement duet from Cantata 78. This last work was originally scored for soprano and contralto, voices close enough to interweave, but in this transcription for baritone and soprano, the gap in the middle sounded huge and made a sense of ensemble all but impossible.

-- Joan Reinthaler

The Bach Festival continues tomorrow night at 7:30, with three additional concerts through next Monday.

By Anne Midgette  |  July 7, 2009; 6:30 AM ET  | Category:  Washington , festivals , local reviews
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