"Let the Secrets of Glory Open"

By Michael Walsh

Two major new works elevate the sacred over the profane

In the secular 20th century, the religious impulse that in the past produced such musical masterworks as Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis has been in short supply. Many contemporary composers, it seems, regard themselves as too sophisticated to write frankly sacred music, or are simply unmoved by the realm of doctrine or liturgy. At a time when nothing is too shocking to be put onstage, spirituality has replaced sexuality as the last taboo.

Significant premieres by two of today's leading composers might help to change that attitude, however. In Washington two weeks ago, Mstislav Rostropovich led the National Symphony Orchestra in the eight completed movements of Krzysztof Penderecki's Polish Requiem, a work in progress for vocal quartet and chorus that promises to be a major statement, both musically and politically, when it is finished some time next year. And last week in Paris, Seiji Ozawa presided over the world premiere of Olivier Messiaen's first opera, Saint Franc,ois d'Assise, which is clearly intended to crown the 75-year-old Messiaen's career.

Despite their radically different compositional styles, Penderecki, 50, and Messiaen have much in common. Both are devout Roman Catholics; their outputs have prominently featured devotional music, notably Penderecki's St. Luke Passion and his Utrenja ("The Entombment of Christ" and the "Resurrection"), and Messiaen's massive piano piece, Vingt Regards sur I'Enfant Jesus, and his work for large chorus and orchestra, La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ. Both men are leading composers in their countries, yet each has transcended parochial considerations to become an important international figure. Furthermore, each writes in an immediately identifiable style that is uniquely his own, and neither has significant imitators.

Penderecki has written two operas on religious subjects: The Devils of Loudun (1969) and Paradise Lost (1978), which the composer has called a Sacra Rappresentazione rather than a conventional opera. Paradise Lost, commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Chicago, was the victim of a turgid production that obscured the work's many beauties. Messiaen's Saint Franc,ois--which resembles no other work in the operatic literature as much as it resembles Paradise Lost in its static, quasi-oratorio quality-- is more fortunate all around.

Produced in the Paris Opera's sumptuous Palais Gamier, Messiaen's work, to the composer's own libretto, is on the grandest scale. It lasts five hours and 40 minutes and requires a large chorus and 120-piece orchestra, including extra brass and winds, a large percussion battery and three electronic keyboard instruments called Ondes Martenot. The orchestra is so big that it overflows the pit to envelop both sides of the stage and several boxes. The subject is the spiritual transformation of Francis the man into Francis the saint. "I have chosen Francis," says Messiaen, "because he is the person who most resembles Christ: chaste, humble, poor and bearing the stigmata as a mark of God's approbation."

An opera of such ambition and scope, coming as it does late in the composer's life, naturally recalls a similar religious epic, Parsifal. Like Wagner's valedictory, Saint Franc,ois is a spacious work of musical architecture, a cathedral in sound that generates a sense of timelessness or, more precisely, of time suspended. It unfolds at a stately pace, illustrating episodes from the life of the saint (the preaching to the birds, the visitation by an angel, the receiving of the stigmata), animated by the whole range of Messiaen's musical vocabulary. Strong, sharply defined motifs are derived from such disparate sources as bird song (the composer is a lifelong ornithologist and notated some of his avian themes at Assisi), plain chant and the whole-tone scale. The themes are treated with Messiaen's characteristic rhythmic complexity, but the effect nevertheless is one of almost childlike simplicity.

In the fifth scene, an angel (Soprano Christiane Eda-Pierre) visits the saint (Bass-Baritone Jose Van Dam) as he is praying. "You speak with God through music," the angel sings, no doubt voicing Messiaen's own conception of his artistic role. "He will reply to you through music. Let the secrets, the secrets of glory open." As the angel begins to play a heavenly viol, an Ondes Martenot sounds a deceptively ingenuous melody. At once oddly angular but celestially serene, it floats above a soft C major chord in the strings and a wordless chorus. The moment is one of beatific bliss, a close approximation of what one imagines the music of the spheres to sound like.

Outstandingly conducted by Ozawa, a longtime Messiaen champion, the production is generally worthy of its subject. The title role, superbly sung by Van Dam, must surely be the longest individual part in the operatic literature. The saint appears in seven of the eight tableaux and does much, if not most, of the singing in each. At the composer's request, Giuseppe Crisolini-Malatesta based the sets and costumes on paintings by Fra Angelico, Giotto and Matthias Gruenewald. As staged by Sandro Sequi, scenes are played in small, diorama-like boxes to emphasize the work's distant, legendary quality. The only serious dramatic defect is the sixth scene, the sermon to the birds, which was intended to be the high point. What was supposed to be a grand laser spectacle representing the flight of the birds in the shape of a cross is instead something more suitable to a light show in a down-at-the-heels disco.

Despite the successful premiere, Saint Franc,ois is too long and too difficult for most opera houses to undertake, and the title role is such an awesome challenge that it is hard to imagine any baritone learning it on speculation. Messiaen's uncompromising aesthetic also places great demands on the listener. But if, as Mark Twain supposedly said, Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds, Messiaen's opera is not as formidable as it seems. Saint Franc,ois d'Assose is a rare spiritual testament and deserves a wider hearing, perhaps in the concert hall or on records.

So does Penderecki's Polish Requiem. Inspired by such recent events in Polish history as the rise of the Solidarity movement and the death of Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, the Requiem is an agonized musical document. Its crunching, tortured melodies, sliding uneasily through microtonal intervals, are the aural equivalent of a painting of hell by Hieronymus Bosch. In the Ingemisco, the chorus groans and shouts as it frantically pleads for God's mercy. Yet there is a tempering element at work too: the ethereal Agnus Dei is a vision of radiant beauty.

When complete, the Requiem will last about 90 minutes. From the evidence so far, it will be a heartfelt work of broad emotional range and consummate technique. Penderecki plans to end the piece not with the resignation of a Requiem Mass but with the optimism of the Resurrection. It will make a highly appropriate symbol, for both Penderecki and Messiaen in these new works offer eloquent testimony to the regenerative powers of sacred music. --By Michael Walsh This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.