INFALLIBLE CHORUS: FINALLY FALLIBLE
DANVILLE, CA—Thanks, Chanticleer. The chorus did us all a huge favor in their latest concert and restored my faith in humanity.
I’ve heard this elite all-male chorus do many hundreds of selections over the years. Usually quite flawlessly. Paragons of perfection. One began to think they were robotic in their pursuit, with great pitch (lacking any accompaniment guidance), command of many languages, and a breadth of notes spanning almost four octaves. It’s as if every work were ready to record on the spot, produced by superpowered androids from outer space.
But finally they showed they were human, at least in one Steven Stucky opus, “Whispers,” among 23 pieces on this program. Divided into two ensembles well separated, they careened giddily off pitch more than once.
What a relief! After 40 years, I was afraid we’d go another 40 before Chanticleer would show any chinks in their impeccable vocal armor.
No matter. Once again they lit up the night singing in seven languages, including Yiddish, Roma, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Latin and, oh yes, English. With music spanning six centuries, ranging from Renaissance to Broadway to spirituals. No conductor, no instruments. A tour de force of first magnitude.
The church sanctuary provided near-perfection vocally in a work about Purgatory, with Italian texts from Dante. This was Matthew Aucoin’s new “Treating Shadows as Solid Things,” with audacious harmonies and deft vocal sonorities. The tenors and countertenors were admirable, bringing the same accuracy and balance to a work three centuries older, the Mexican Antonio de Salazar’s “Salve Regina”(Hail Holy Queen).
The astronomic heights were reached in Gershwin’s “Summertime” by soloist Cortez Mitchell, countertenor, matching the high range of mezzo-sopranos. Chanticleer’s vaunted countertenors again did celestial service in Steven Stametz’s modern “I Have Had Singing.”
It’s a given that Chanticleer can inevitably shine in Renaissance works of Lassus, Byrd, and Palestrina. But who’d have predicted their prowess at spirituals like “Straight Street,” the Irish “Dulamán,” a Japanese work, the Yiddish “Bei mir bist du schön” or the fast-flying Roma song from Hungary “Járba?”
These concerts mark the grand finale for bass Eric Alatorre, the anchor mainstay of the group since 1990. His singing is as distinctive as his trademark waxed mustache.
The audience at St. Isidore’s Church might have included more mathematicians than music aficionados. How else to explain the buzz all around at intermission over Chanticleer having just 11 singers, instead of the usual 12? Matthew Knickman had just gotten doctor’s orders to rest his overworked vocal cords, forcing the rest to reshuffle vocal lines so as to avoid glaring empty spaces in the music. It worked: The reweave was expert. Of course.
The church décor is white, modern and attractive, with the outline of nearby Mt. Diablo above the altar. Its one drawback is lack of stage lighting, leaving both scores and singers almost in the dark.
CHANTICLEER, all-male a cappella chorus in four Calif. cities including home-base San Francisco through June 16; heard June 9 at St. Isidore’s Church, Danville. For Chanticleer info: go online.
