If you miss the Fresno Master Chorale’s ‘Israel in Egypt,’ you might never get another chance
By Donald Munro
How rare is it to witness a live performance of the Handel oratorio “Israel in Egypt”?
“I have never heard this work live,” says Anna Hamre, music director of the Fresno Master Chorale, which will present the full-length work in a one-time concert at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 19, at Shaghoian Concert Hall.
With a lifetime steeped in the choral music canon, Hamre would have been the person you’d expect to have heard this rarely performed Handel piece, which he wrote in 1737. But it just isn’t done very much. (Compare that to Handel’s “Messiah,” written four years later, which gets thousands of performances a year.) There’s simple reason for that, Hamre says: “It’s so big and there are so many notes.”
“Israel in Egypt” requires a double choir, meaning that the singers replicate two complete sets of soprano-alto-tenor-bass singers. At the Shaghoian, they’ll be grouped symmetrically facing the audience, like two healthy lungs ready to blast the audience. Including 40 musicians in the orchestra, there will be 200 people on stage.
The piece tells the story of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Handel uses a narrative approach, taking care to dramatically document all those famous plagues. (The frogs get their own movement.) Unlike “Messiah,” which has some great tunes but doesn’t really tell a cohesive storyline, “Israel in Egypt” offers an easy-to-follow linear narrative.
At heart, Handel was truly a musical-theater guy, Hamre says, in terms of his ability to marry plot and music. Operas were expensive to stage in Handel’s time, and as a composer, he saw greater commercial chances for success by composing oratorios — a similar style to opera that doesn’t require sets or costumes. (Again, a frog costume isn’t the easiest thing to pull off.) Handel puts a lot of oomph into the action experienced by both the Israelites and Egyptians, from the smiting of first-born sons to the cinematic quality of the parting of the Red Sea. (Think Charlton Heston as Moses in a long tunic.)
There are five featured soloists: tenor Aaron Burdick, soprano Maria Briggs, alto Emily Weinberg, soprano Sherah Moore Burdick and mezzo Gena Chambers. But unlike most oratorios, which propel the movement through soilists, the leading “characters” in the piece are really the choirs themselves. That’s another reason why “Israel in Egypt” isn’t often performed: It’s tough to get emotional nuance with 150 people singing. A soloist has various subtle techniques at his or her disposal to convey depth of feeling in a passage — a change in enunciation, a sudden, hushed whisper of a note — that is much harder to replicate with an ensemble.
Hamre has been working hard with her singers to find those emotional colors.
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The Master Chorale, which is under the umbrella of the Fresno Community Chorus, has spent this season on an introspective and philosophical journey to help counter the anger and angst of the contemporary world. “Israel in Egypt” was selected long before anyone realized the Iran War would take center stage, thrusting that ancient part of the world into the spotlight.
Hamre didn’t plan it this way, but she likes how the season’s theme offers the soothing power of music to heal. Which will make this “once in a lifetime concert,” as the chorale is calling it, even more special.
“I like to think of it as a persistence-rising-above thing,” she says. “There will be a better day.”
Note: The concert is dedicated to the memory of Master Chorale member David Hensley, a longtime choral conductor and adjunct professor at Fresno State.
