Matthew Halls Triumphs in Salzburg
Credit: Eric Richmond
Conductor Matthew Halls has won great critical acclaim for his recent Handel Messiah with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchester, Salzburger Bachchor and four outstanding British soloists Joanne Lunn, Stephen Wallace, Charles Daniels and Matthew Brook, at Salzburg's Grosses Festspielhaus.
Matthew Halls was responsible for this excellent, lucidly transparent and wonderfully clean performance full of variety at every turn. Salzburg audiences know him already from the extraordinary performance of the opera Arianna in the State Theatre, where Halls will soon return for the operatic rarity Imeneo, composed by Handel a year before the Messiah.
He conducted the oratorio from memory with taut organization, a clear concept and a superb stick technique. While acknowledging the quality of the Mozarteum Orchestra, here it was clear that they must have been meticulously rehearsed. ...
One can only wish for a continuing collaboration between Salzburg and Matthew Halls. wrote the Salzburger Nachtrichter, while the journalist of Dreh Punkt Kultur reported: At the end of the performance by the Mozarteum Orchester and Salzburger Bach Choir in the Großen Festspielhaus one wanted to shout "Da Capo"!
For Matthew Halls the overall line and the smallest phrase are of equal importance, and so he presented a Messiah that moved powerfully even as it soared heavenwards ... The orchestra, choir and soloists followed the conductor in the rapid coloratura figures and graceful melodies with the greatest authority and brilliance. So while everything bubbled underneath the surface, the musical tension escalated from the first until the last chord.
The Salzburger Bach Choir – at the top of their game - reacted with agility and security to the smallest suggestions of the conductor with breathtaking dynamic, tempo and mood changes: spirited, precise in the coloratura, radiant in the main lines, giving due significance to the presentation of the text. A bravura performance! …
The Mozarteum Orchestra in its role as a period instrument ensemble provided the rousing foundation: an almost chamber-like view of the whole provided the central fire for the most incredible outbursts of strength and sonority. Meanwhile Matthew Halls never lost sight of the detail: in the alto aria "He was despised" the violins were actually made to sound like vicious little bites and blows.
These performances were Halls' second appearance with the orchestra, with whom he will also appear for a new production of Handel's opera Imeneo in 2012. Following last week's stunning Messiah success, Halls has received an immediate reinvitation to work with the Orchestra again later in the season.
