The Compleat Messiah

SITE RATING: 9/10

SITE REVIEW: At first I mistook this release as a reissue of Sorrell's 1995 Messiah, which was also with the baroque group Apollo's Fire, but was pleased to discover that this was a brand-new interpretation, which performance is so far above the previous set, that it's almost as if an entirely different ensemble is performing. Apollo's Fire, the Chicago-based baroque chamber ensemble, have mastered the clean, polished sound that is favored by modern music scholars, but even more impressive, Sorrell has managed to infuse a great deal of emotional content into the performance. The chamber orchestra plays with highly-delineated precision, while the soloists and chorus sing with intense feeling, approaching technical perfection. Among the soloists, Amanda Forsythe is a standout, with beautifully lyrical, unique ornamentation, a gorgeous tone, and passionate nuances. Contralto Elizabeth Shammash possesses a rich, dark tone, full of pathos and drama; tenor Ross Hauck sings with a pure, angelic tone, while baritone Jeffrey Strauss brings a pleasant burr to his arias. Tenor Ian Honeyman, who doesn't make an appearance until the second disc, is the weakest link; despite possessing an enviable tone, his scenery-chewing recitatives veer into the melodramatic, and seem of a different piece than the rest of the performance. The Choir sings with a clean "white" sound, but without sounding sterile and robotic, bringing great warmth and compassion to the choruses. Comparing it to Sorrell's previous Messiah, it's clear that in the sixteen-year interval between the two recordings, she has shaped Apollo's Fire into a world-class organization.

The DVD portion of the set is short, running only about 30 minutes. It's divided into two parts: the first, and longest segment, features Jeanette Sorrell discussing her love and understanding of select movements of Messiah, and features several filmed concert segments showing a couple of the soloists and several excerpts of different choruses. The second part of the DVD is self-promotional - it features the director and several members of Apollo's fire plugging their own organization - with Sorrell discussing how she hand-picks each member for their emotional creativity, and the members discussing how free and empowering being a part of Apollo's Fire is. Sorrell is omnipresent in the program - writing, narrating, and appearing throughout, and her unique persona (which I would classify as a hybrid of Stevie Nicks and Shari Lewis), grew on me, although the opening shot of her leaning up against a stone arch intoning scripture made me wonder if this was going to be a modern-day Monty Python moment. She is obviously a passionate, highly expressive director; has managed to surround herself with the cream of Chicago's baroque singers and instrumentalists, and this Messiah is so much more accomplished than the previous disc, that I can easily recommend it.