Boston Conservatory Underwhelms

If Tristan and Isolde were really the lackluster lovers that the Sunday performance by the Boston Conservatory Orchestra (BCO) suggested, their ill-fated end may not have been so tragic after all. However, though passions were chilled when the BCO opened the afternoon performance in Sanders Theatre, they soon thawed as conductor Bruce Hangen coaxed the orchestra into a heart-warming rendition of Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations.

Almost immediately after the lights dimmed and 24-year-old guest conductor Michael Sakir planted his feet on the podium, the orchestra jumped into a frenzied arpeggio followed by several cymbal crashes. With the boisterous opening of the prelude to Act III of “Lohengrin,” the strings were quickly overpowered by the brass line—though not enough to hide the fact that the violins were out of tune. Despite the unbalanced opening, the swashbuckling theme was well articulated by the brass section for a clean end.

Like his “Lohengrin,” Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” is also a story about love. The muted sound of the overture’s opening in the clarinet melody evoked a prayer-like feeling. However, the performance failed to build on this. At times, Sakir was able to lift the brass line above the lush strokes of two-note slurs in the strings for a regal effect. But the musical lines frequently stopped before the end of the phrases, and, despite the music’s religious undertones, the delivery lacked fervor. Even during the piece’s most climactic moments, the orchestra’s sound felt flat in the 1,166-seat concert hall. Sakir led precisely but cautiously.

After Sakir’s brief stint on the Sanders stage, he was relieved by Hangen, the conductor of the BCO, who introduced California-born soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer to conclude the first half of the concert with the prelude and “Liebestod” from “Tristan and Isolde.” Garbed in a floor-length dress of dull bluish gray, Harmer took a seat in the back of the orchestra as she waited for her entrance. As soon as Hangen raised the baton, there was a palpable difference in the orchestra’s attentiveness. The musicians seemed to sit straighter in their chairs, and the audience waited silently. The brooding tone of the cellos in the prelude’s opening created a dark tension, with unresolved harmonies longing for fulfillment. Under Hangen’s direction, the orchestra members seemed to be more attentive to note quality and phrasing, and, for the first time that afternoon, a rich orchestral sound filled Sanders Theatre.

With her long blond hair pulled back into a low bun, Harmer rose as the winds echoed the hushed music of the prelude before Isolde’s song. Her clear voice easily soared over the orchestra’s accompaniment. Rich and full in sound, each individual note seemed to weigh down the phrases, pushing against the natural flow of the musical lines. Despite the soprano’s heavy phrases, Hangen, was able to control the piece’s flow and ebb and give the music a sense of direction. Though the ensemble was a bit messy at the song’s end, the finale elicited warm applause and a few whistles of admiration before the lights were turned on for intermission.

The second half of the concert began with a concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra composed in 1991 by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Romanian violinist Irina Muresanu joined cellist Andrew Mark in this two-movement double concerto. The work was characterized by constant dissonance and a mixture of tempos and rhythms. In the more lyrical first movement, the soloists were often in unison, rather than engaged in dialogue with each other. The repetitive motifs carried through the work, but did not seem to have a clear sense of direction.

Hangen had one last chance to turn around the uninspired performance with a soulful rendition of Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations. A theme and fourteen variations, Elgar’s best-known large-scale work was dedicated to his friends “pictured within;” each variation is a portrayal of one of his close acquaintances.

The theme without a theme—the “Enigma” is never revealed—floated lightly over an airy sound in the strings. Hangen led the listener on a tour of the personalities of the variations, whether in the quirky spiccato passages of the violins or the dance-like slurs of the winds. The lovely muted sounds of the ninth variation, “Nimrod,” created an especially noble effect as the main theme was, for the first time, drawn out in a long line sustained by swells of sound. In the final variation, Elgar returned to himself. Hangen paced the last variation very well, as he alternately pushed forward the rolling waves of sound and pulled back to build the excitement finally unleashed in the brass lines at the end.

Though it took over an hour—and three selections from Wagner operas—for the BCO to open up, its performance of the “Enigma” Variations under Hangen’s direction revealed a dynamism that will hopefully appear more as the season progresses.

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.