KVT – Handeled Very Nicely

KVT has a satisfying date with The Messiah

It was nice to have ‘The Messiah’ sung during the Easter season rather than as the usual Christmas Oratorio. It was an abbreviated Messiah but handled so nicely that I wouldn’t be surprised that in the years to come we hear a full version variety and that it becomes as much part of the sung tradition in Hanoi as is Verdi’s “Requiem” and Orf’s ‘Carmina Burana’

Choir master and conductor, Mr Sutcliffe had the choir enunciating really nicely and crisply and the soloists too were easy to understand even if a few final consonants were lost…but that’s of little consequence. Soprano Ha Pham Long was in excellent voice and I felt a little put out that my favorite bit ‘I Know That My Redeemer Liveth’ wasn’t in her repertoire…she’d have done it gorgeously. Bass Vu Manh Hung did well with another of my favorites, the difficult ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’. The opening air ‘Every Valley shall Be Exalted’ was a credit to tenor Trinh Thanh Binh and alto Ngo Huong Diep was easy to listen to throughout.

Of course in a shortened Messiah concert it’s the chorus that has to shine and shine they did and any Messiah novice would have come away wanting more. The whole show lifted enormously with the grand ‘ For Unto Us a Child is Born’ and never looked back, culminating in a great “Hallelujah Chorus’ that had not a few hairs standing on end. It was encored and the audience invited to sing along. Perhaps in the not too distant future Hanoi could see a People’s Messiah (pretty common around Xmas time in a few Western cities) where the audience helps belt out the bits they like.

It was a good place to finish an abbreviation, even if a few purists may have been alarmed that it was out of sync with the actual libretto. I’d have loved ‘All We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray’ to have been sung as it always sounds like fun and as for all those Amens that we missed out on hearing! Next time!!

Most of the baritones were up to my old tricks and bobbing along like a toy boats in a ripply bathtub. It’s the only way I can get into the Handel beat too. But just as well the rest of the massed choir were still or we’d all have felt a little sea sick at the end. And, Baritones, that’s not a crtiticism, just a sigh of enjoyment. You all, like the rest of the choir, were gorgeous and all augers well for Carmina Burana…during which I’d never be able to sit steady if I gained a place in the tenor ranks.

The orchestra was a pleasure to listen to and I am in awe of the principals who had so much riding on their shoulders (literally in the case of the violin and viola players) and the trumpeter was wonderful when ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’ and it did, strong and clear.

Mr Sutcliffe started the concert conducting Handel’s ‘Water Suite no 1’ and it was a very creditable performance. The French Horns were given star solo treatment and made the most of it in the Hornpipe. I loved the way that the bassoon and oboe echoed the horns. Too many orchestras get all oompey poompey with this work and go along at a pedestrian pace but we were not treated so off handedly. When George 1st heard the piece played way back in 1741 (the orchestra precariously seated on barges on the river Thames ) it’s said that he liked it so much that he made them repeat it over and over again. No doubt he’d have insisted that the members of the VNSO do the same.

Well done, Mr Sutcliffe, the soloists, the members of the VNSO and all those massed faces in the choir.