The Passion of a Stormy Prophet

LEVELAND, Sept. 24 - Franz Welser-Möst evidently likes to take risks. In his two seasons since taking over as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, he has opened and closed the subscription series with an outsize work.

But this year the risks were greater as the season approached, bringing with it the distinct possibility of a strike. In fact, that possibility still looms.

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The opening concert, an imposing performance of Mendelssohn's grand oratorio "Elijah" on Thursday night, went ahead only because the players and the management had agreed to extend the present contract until Oct. 31. What happens between now and the end of the season, with three performances of Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" scheduled for May, is anyone's guess.

The Cleveland management, like that of most other major American orchestras, has responded to a dire economic climate by cutting costs and is now looking for monetary concessions from the players. But the picture is especially gloomy here because the city's swooning economy affords little margin for error.

On Thursday, at least, impending doom was easy to forget amid the luxurious trappings of Severance Hall in all its renovated splendor, virtually dripping with Art Deco finery. And the performance, with the bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff in the title role, promised even greater rewards.

The oratorio, a venerable musical form for chorus and orchestra, emerged from Victorian England, which heaped fusty new works atop elephantine performances of great old works, with a bad rap. But "Elijah," for one, can sound urgent and compelling in the right hands, and Mr. Welser-Möst grabbed attention with a fleet opening and held it with fast pacing that nevertheless allowed the performance to breathe.

Asked in a preconcert discussion onstage why he had chosen the work for this occasion, Mr. Welser-Möst said, "There was a simple reason, and it has a name: Thomas Quasthoff." And indeed, Mr. Quasthoff is a natural choice for the role of the stormy prophet, or vice versa.

Although one hesitates to engage in two-bit psychologizing, Mr. Quasthoff, physically deformed from birth, has shown a deep affinity for music that sears the soul, whether it evokes alienation in Schubert's song cycle "Winterreise" or martial bravado in Mahler's cycle "Des Knaben Wunderhorn." And he brought both tremendous force and poignant consolation to a portrayal bathed in warmth and humanity.

The choice of Mr. Quasthoff had other consequences, as Mr. Welser-Möst also explained. Since Mr. Quasthoff sings the role only in German, that is how it was presented: thus, "Elias." There is further justification for this practice, not uncommon in Europe, in that Mendelssohn wrote the work in German, though its premiere was given in English, in Birmingham, England, in 1846.

Still, because the music addresses the words so plainly and eloquently, it was too bad that the audience here missed that direct connection. It was also too bad for the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus - an amateur group, but a fine one - which could surely have articulated the text better and more easily in English.

The chorus is the other hero in "Elijah," and the this chorus, 170 strong, was impressive in its corporate sound, whether in full-throated fortissimos or intense pianissimos, though individual lines betrayed much unevenness in vocal quality, hardly surprising in an amateur group. Its first sound packed a mighty wallop in a hall that also improved acoustically with that 2000 renovation.

But the Cleveland Orchestra is not one to be upstaged, and its performance was all the more striking for its overall restraint and subtlety. This has long been one of the finest Mendelssohn orchestras anywhere (especially under Mr. Welser-Möst's immediate predecessor, Christoph von Dohnanyi), able to skitter or sing like few others, and it can shout as needed without becoming raucous or strident.

It was also a special pleasure to hear for the first time the big E. M. Skinner pipe organ, restored to its rightful place after the renovation. In its lower registers it is an instrument as much felt as heard, something no electronic instrument can match.

Of the other vocalists, Susan Platts, a mezzo-soprano, was the most consistently satisfying, with a lush, dark tone. John Mark Ainsley, a tenor, made a strong start but seemed to weary in his final aria.

"Elijah," it seems safe to say, will be presented again on Saturday, and other Cleveland orchestra concerts will follow over the next month. Beyond that, even Elijah couldn't foresee.

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