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Jan. 15--Yes, Handel's "Messiah" typically brings audiences to its feet, particularly during its stirring "Hallelujah" chorus.
But the grand old oratorio -- which Handel penned in a little more than three weeks in 1741 -- rarely thunders in quite the way it did over the weekend at the Auditorium Theatre.
Ingeniously reimagined to embrace black musical tradition, the aptly named "Too Hot to Handel" proved that even the most revered classical masterpieces can be taught to swing.
Not that there's anything wrong with Handel's original. Quite the contrary, it remains his greatest oratorio -- perhaps his foremost achievement -- and a long-standing audience favorite around the planet.
But this decidedly hipper version, subtitled "The Jazz Gospel Messiah," cleverly re-calibrates an 18th Century classic for a 21st Century sensibility. All at once, four-square rhythms sway to a modern beat; high-flown melodies re-emerge in shades of blue; meticulously penned choral passages cry out with the fervor of a gloriously improvised gospel church service.
It's impossible to know, of course, what Handel himself might have thought of such a venture. Considering the breadth of his musical imagination, as well his tendency to borrow from the work of others (a common practice at the time), it's not difficult to imagine that he might have applauded such a freewheeling conception.
And though we typically expect to encounter the "Messiah" during the Christmas season, a post-holiday performance is not exactly sacrilege. Handel himself performed the piece during Easter, a tradition that survives in some European quarters.
Last year, the Auditorium Theatre staged its debut of "Too Hot to Handel" in January, launching a new, after-Christmas tradition that seems to be catching on. Presented to honor the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Too Hot to Handel" expressed a message of peace and exultation that was entirely appropriate for the occasion.
If anything, the second-annual performance Saturday for a near-capacity crowd sounded hotter, faster and less inhibited than last year's -- no small feat. Perhaps inspired by the robust audience response to the inaugural show in 2006, the returned cast of lead vocalists took greater musical liberties than before. So did a large swing band and a mighty chorus.
The masterstroke of this alternative "Messiah," which was arranged and orchestrated by Bob Christianson and Gary Anderson, lay in how much of Handel's original thematic material it wove seamlessly into the whole. Shifting with seeming effortlessness between florid vocal passages of the baroque and brilliant jazz improvisation of today, "Too Hot to Handel" fused two seemingly unrelated musical cultures. It will be a long time before listeners forget soprano Alfreda Burke lavishing the sound of her creamy midregister voice on "The Trumpet Shall Sound"; tenor Rodrick Dixon making a virtuoso showpiece of "Why Do the Nations So Furiously Rage"; and countertenor Victor Trent Cook unspooling long strands of silken tone in "But Who May Abide."
Though the proceedings sounded a bit overamplified for this listener's tastes, there was no doubt that Chicago jazz instrumentalists such as Jim Gailloreto, Pat Mallinger and Tracy Kirk played hotter than hot.
"Too Hot to Handel" is available on CD, with a different cast but the same spirit, at www.toohot2handel.com.
hreich@tribune.com
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Copyright (c) 2007, Chicago Tribune
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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