LA Phil: The Gospel According to the Other Mary

NEW YORK — The very title tells you this is no traditional version of the biblical story: "The Gospel According to the Other Mary."

And sure enough, the retelling of Christ's last days through the eyes of Mary Magdalene is interlaced with heavy doses of modern social activism in this stirring new oratorio, composed by John Adams to a libretto compiled by Peter Sellars from texts both ancient and contemporary.

The work had its East Coast premiere Wednesday night at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in a performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by its music director Gustavo Dudamel.
First performed in Los Angeles 10 months ago, "Gospel" is written for three soloists — two mezzo-sopranos and a tenor — who take the parts of Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha, and their brother Lazarus. Three countertenors function as narrator, singing in gorgeous overlapping harmonies. There's also a chorus that comments on the action and at times becomes a participant.

The piece, a kind of sequel to the team's 2000 Nativity oratorio, "El Nino," is in two halves, the first recounting the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the second the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Sellars tells the story through texts ranging from those by the 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen to the 20th-century radical Catholic activist Dorothy Day, from poetry by Louise Erdrich and Rosario Castellanos to excerpts from the Old and News Testaments. References to drug addiction, battered women, shelters for the poor and farmworker protests pop up repeatedly amid the biblical story.

This effort to bridge 2,000 years of history works surprisingly well for the most part, though it occasionally seems more intellectually willed than artistically realized. And there are moments during the nearly three hours of playing time, including intermission, when judicious trimming might have been welcome.

But Adams enlivens the proceedings with some of his most adventurous music, by turns tenderly melodic and harshly dissonant. At one point, he uses the recorded sounds of frogs to introduce an Erdrich poem; a short while later, rumbling and crashing chords simulate an earthquake that dislodges the stone covering Jesus' tomb. He also makes heavy use of the cimbalom, a large box with metal strings that are struck with wooden hammers.

A high point of the evening is Adams' somber, soulful setting of the poem "Passover" by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi that closes Act 1. Its words sum up what Sellars is getting at in drawing parallels between past and present throughout the oratorio: "Each of us has been a slave in Egypt, has soaked straw with clay and sweat and crossed the sea with dry feet. ... This year in fear and shame, next year in strength and justice."

Crucially, since the premiere, Sellars has transformed "Gospel" into a fully staged work, set on two wooden platforms in front of the orchestra. There are a few props, like the blanket flooded with green light that covers the body of Lazarus as he slowly rises from the dead in a thrillingly suspenseful series of choreographed movements. Costumes are simple and colorful modern-day outfits. Colored lights play on the wall at the rear of the stage behind the chorus, reflecting the mood of the music.

But the most dramatic change is Sellars' incorporation of three dancers who interact with the soloists in amazing ways. Sometimes the dancers and singers mirror and amplify each other's movements; at other times their bodies intertwine, or the dancers seem to be manipulating the singers as if they were marionettes. Even the chorus joins in the action, at one point taking on the dual roles of farmworker and police who beat them during a demonstration.

These elaborate movements wouldn't work without the whole-hearted participation of the extraordinary singers. Both Kelley O'Connor as Mary and Tamara Mumford as Martha pour out their lines with fervent, ripe tone, frequently descending to the depths of a contralto's range. As Lazarus, Russell Thomas manages to sound both sweet and heroic at the same time.

There's terrific work as well by countertenors Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley, and by dancers Michael Schumacher, Anani Sanouvi and Troy Ogilvie. The Los Angeles Master Chorale, directed by Grant Gershon, sings with power and precision, and the orchestra under Dudamel plays the difficult score with wonderful spirit and grace.

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Though every moment of The Gospel According to the Other Mary was the John Adams I've known for decades, the piece sounded like none other.

That's usually the case with each succeeding Adams work, but the leap taken in this near-three-hour Gospel, unveiled on Wednesday at Lincoln Center by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was much larger than usual. It's Adams' biggest and most profusely scored work – not just because his stature allows him to compose on this scale, but because his music was out to accommodate a gospel that was hardly limited to "the other Mary."

Librettist Peter Sellars used the distressed circumstances of Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and her brother Lazarus as jumping off points to confront oppression of the underprivileged through the ages, fluidly moving in and out of the Biblical story, drawing on texts from the medieval saint Hildegard of Bingen to modern social activist Cesar Chavez. Jesus is still there, more discussed than dramatized, and the piece is effectively narrated by a trio of countertenors with harmonies suggesting an electronically altered single voice.

Two platforms sat at the front of Avery Fisher Hall stage for three dancers and vocal soloists Kelley O'Connor, Tamara Mumford and Russell Thomas. A rear-stage platform showed the Los Angeles Master Chorale in working class garb. No surprise that conductor Gustavo Dudamel's physical magnetism was dwarfed by the performing apparatus, though having just led the Gospel through a European tour, he held all his forces together with apparent heroism.

Apparent? Though Adams usually composes with such clarity that I was convinced, on first hearing, that The Death of Klinghoffer, El Nino and Doctor Atomic (in its original version) were masterworks, Gospel is too overwhelming, especially choral sections, to allow an overview this soon or to properly parse the performance. To a certain extent, the characters are about discussion philosophy than exploring their interpersonal relationships. Still, O'Connor created moments of considerable vocal gravity, Thomas's Lazarus was particularly good when reliving the horrors of the crucifixion, and Mumford, whose Martha is the most thinly drawn character of all, made you care.

Typical of Adams, any given moment is a confluence of layers – vocal, orchestral, etc – though in this new piece, the layers are more concentrated, eventful and using a more heterogeneous range of sounds. The cimbalom, for one, was part of many unexpected combinations of instruments – all reflecting Adams's marvelous ear for timbre. Unlike past Adams, such layers didn't even try to lock together. Contrapuntally speaking, the peripheral composer Conlon Nancarrow came to mind as the music seemed to come unhinged in Adams' portrayal of a world undergoing radical transformation with the sacrifice of Christ.

A percussion-led earthquake effect was a fine example of Adams's new-found incongruity. Wind-instrument glissandos (similar to Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Last Supper) accompanied miracles. Unrelieved dissonance was everywhere – not abrasively so, but creating a sense of inner disturbance. Adams usually finds resolution in his works, but not here. The music tells you that the story is to be continued, even amid otherworldly harmonies, augmented by electronically-rendered night sounds of frogs and crickets.

The staging had familiar Sellars elements – like semaphoric Tai Chi movements in the chorus – though the front stage platforms didn't give him enough room. Dancers were so crowded their movement suggested aerobics with anguish. Was one dancer back there dragging another on his back enroute to the crucifixion? Well, let's have some perspective here: This package was bursting at the seams with its own richness. How often does that happen?

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During the "Infernal Dance" of Stravinsky's "Firebird," which depicts the subjects of the ogre Kastchei spinning with such savagery that they drop in exhaustion, the music builds to vehement, searing chords. In his performance of the complete "Firebird" on Thursday night with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall, the second of two programs, Gustavo Dudamel drew such blazing colors, slashing attacks and sheer terror from the orchestra that at the climax of the dance some people in the hall broke into applause and shouted "Bravo." This temporarily drowned out the transition that immediately follows: the powerful chords disperse to reveal mysterious, hushed sonorities. 

The formal protocols of classical music concerts that can make audiences feel uptight should be tossed out. And to his immense credit, Mr. Dudamel is drawing newcomers into concert halls. So if some listeners on Thursday could not help expressing their excitement, why not? 

For me, though, it was also a revealing moment. Like most ballet scores, "The Firebird," based on a Russian folk legend, is episodic. Still, this 45-minute piece has an overall structure and should unfold inexorably. For all the intensity, imagination and excitement Mr. Dudamel, conducting from memory, brought to bear, the performance lacked some cohesion and depth. 

I liked that the dynamic 32-year-old Mr. Dudamel did not go for the obvious and simply pump up the piece with youthful energy. Quite the contrary, during long stretches he drew out the music, often taking slow tempos so as to convey the strangeness embedded in the score. But there were some oddly languid passages. "The Firebird" has seldom seemed so long. 

It is exciting to hear this charismatic conductor taking risks and following a vision. Now in his fourth season as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he has galvanized the city and become for all conductors a model of community outreach and education. Not bad. 

He has also fostered working relationships with living composers. This visit by the orchestra to New York will be remembered especially for Wednesday night's performance of John Adams's ambitious and powerful oratorio "The Gospel According to the Other Mary," which tells the story of the Crucifixion from the perspective of Mary Magdalene, with a libretto compiled by the director Peter Sellars, drawn from the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament sources, with poems and texts by Dorothy Day, Louise Erdrich, Primo Levi and others woven in. 

Mr. Dudamel and the Philharmonic gave the premiere of this work in a concert performance last spring at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Early this month the piece was performed there in a semi-staged version directed by Mr. Sellars. That staging was presented on Wednesday for the work's New York premiere. 

"The Gospel According to the Other Mary" depicts the events of the Crucifixion by showing three siblings —Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus — as both biblical and contemporary characters. This Mary Magdalene is a social activist who runs a center for unemployed women with Martha. When we meet them, they have been jailed for protesting on behalf of the poor. Martha is responsible and somber; Mary is searching and troubled. 

In a video interview online Mr. Adams describes the challenge of writing this work, comparable in length to his operas. Since the premiere last year, he has made some trims. It remains a long piece: Act I lasts some 70 minutes; Act II about an hour. As a structure, the oratorio sometimes seems overextended, and the narrative thrust loses momentum. 

Still, this is an extraordinary work, containing some of Mr. Adams's richest, most daring music. At this point in his career he has a masterly ability to write multi-textured scores where layers of music swirl and spin simultaneously, yet everything is audible. Though his language draws from recognizable inspirations, like big-band jazz, Bach, Copland, Ives, Ravel and more, his voice could not be more personal and fresh. I will not soon forget the entrancing sound of the three countertenors, who both relate, and participate in, the story. Their music hovers on a border between the celestial and the eerie. 

Mr. Sellars's production blends the cast of three singers, three dancers and the countertenors into a fluid choreography of gestures that mingle singing, acting and movement. Though Jesus does not appear, the singers and dancers voice his words and become him. 

As with the libretto he fashioned for Mr. Adams's opera "Doctor Atomic," Mr. Sellars folds contemporary poems into the text in an attempt to underline the modern power of the Gospel. When the abject Mary Magdalene, thinking ruefully about her life and overcome after Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead, washes his feet with her hair, she sings an Erdrich poem that ends with the lines: "It is the old way that girls/get even with their fathers — by wrecking their bodies on other men." 

Suddenly the Mary Magdalene of the Gospel seems a sympathetic figure, brought to life by Mr. Adams's wrenching music. At other times, though, I wish Mr. Sellars had been more selective in his borrowings. The libretto comes across as padded and, at times, so does the score. 

Still, this is an important new work. The cast could not have been better. The rich-voiced mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor was a perplexed, passionate and humane Mary Magdalene. The mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford brought a plush voice and affecting dignity to the role of Martha. The tenor Russell Thomas was an impassioned Lazarus, heroic in his quest to comprehend what encountering Jesus has done to his family. 

The excellent countertenors Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley gave their all, both vocally and dramatically. And it was moving to see the impressive dancers Michael Schumacher, Anani Sanouvi and Troy Ogilvie almost attaching themselves to the singers during moments when music and movement became one. 

The members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale (Grant Gershon, music director), dressed in colorful street clothes, sang splendidly. The blazing and vibrant playing of the orchestra under Mr. Dudamel conveyed ownership of a score they should rightly be proud of. 

Mr. Dudamel began Thursday's program with Claude Vivier's "Zipangu," a 1980 work for small string ensemble inspired by the composer's trip to Asia. The music sets an elusive Asian-pinged melody to tangy, piercing harmonies, played with tart colors in this riveting performance. Debussy's orchestral masterpiece "La Mer" ended the first half, a performance that, like the playing of "The Firebird," had moment-to-moment touches of inspiration, but could have used more shape and direction. 

Still, Mr. Dudamel is a classical-music rock star whose charisma translates into his music-making. It is hard to ask for more. 

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Of course, is also found in the Easter edition of the Lucerne Festival, the familiar (Baroque) Passion - namely, those of John by Johann Sebastian Bach (today Friday with John Eliot Gardiner). But, there was a strong, yes burning contrast - a setting of the Passion events through the eyes and ear-set of the present. "The Gospel According to the Other Mary" comes from the American John Adams and displays a certain parallel to the Christmas Oratorio "El Niiio". Here as there the biblical words warden from the Gospels associated with newer texts and often confronted abruptly. Peter Sellars, who compiled the libretto will bring together old and the present, with emphasis on the Today's violence against women. Suffering then and now - this sonorous power draws us inexorably in its wake.

Without optical frills
"The Gospel According to the Other Mary" (the other is Mary Magdalene, the real protagonist of this work) was premiered a year ago in Los Angeles. For the resumption created Sellars, who is something of an enfant terrible among opera directors, a staged version of the concert hall. She now draws on Tourne to the co-producers in New York, London, Paris and just Lucerne. KKL waived Sellars on optical no-frills motion pictures and theatrical effects, everything is focused on the people. Front, before the orchestra, two podiums. Then Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and their brother Lazarus. The figures are sometimes doubled by dancers. Additionally there is a counter-tenor trio, which are usually the words of Jesus entrusted. This occurs on himself and never is always present as an intellectual center.

An omniscient narrator
Rather irritating may be the movement choreography – a mixture of hyper-realistic and stylized mime gestures. The same goes for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Alltagsgewandung in on the gallery commented the events and again vehemently for the oppressed position taking. The 66 year-old John Adams heard (especially with his successful opera "Nixon in China"), the leading figures of American Minimal Music. Whose traces can also be found here, but Adams has parted from her. His music envelops, became the "omniscient narrator". This applies particularly to the orchestra, which in this version is acting more in the background. Since deeper layers are exposed, psychological, social, spiritual. Here the dimension of the unsaid is saying - in the musical background of clearly articulating the voices and instrumental interludes. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is familiar with such requirements, Adams finally stands as her "Creative Chair". They all fit into the self-imposed framework, even the conductor has young star Gustavo Dudamel, confident of his office autocratically, are in the orchestra, which is acting in this version more in the background. Since deeper layers are exposed, psychological, social, spiritual. Here the dimension of the unsaid is saying - in the musical background of clearly articulating the voices and instrumental interludes. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is familiar with such requirements, Adams finally stands as her "Creative Chair". They all fit into the self-imposed framework, even the conductor has young star Gustavo Dudamel, confident of his office autocratically, is for once very modest.

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association with "The Gospel According To The Other Mary". 

LUCERNE FESTIVAL OF EASTER The Passion once from men's and women's perspective: The Easter Festival (March 16 to 24) under running with Bach and John Adams, the boundaries between secular and sacred music.

Symphony concerts have pushed back the Lucerne Easter Festival of sacred music in churches. For several years, but, conversely, the secular symphony concerts were at the KKL sacred. One example is this year Britten's "War Requiem" with the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio: A work that was written as a memorial and reconciliation after the Second World War.

It reflects the festival, such as sacred music itself increasingly transcendence sat in a secular context. At this year's festival, the shows examples of the juxtaposition of two prominent Passion settings of the KKL concert hall. John Eliot Gardiner conducts Bach's St. John Passion, the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel brings John Adams's "Passion According To The Other Mary" performed: In the theatrical version of director and librettist Peter Sellars, who had just arrived in Los Angeles Premiere.

Bach's Passions already owe their universality a combination of tradition with innovation at the time. They moved the text and passion with the community at the center of the chorales, intervened as well as new trends. The arias - on contemporary texts - brought individual piety with one, with the passion is not only for the forgiveness of sins, but also allows the personal participation in the sufferings of Jesus. New in the St. John Passion was the operatic drama of the courtroom scenes and folk choirs: it mirrored a clear overall world order rests on the great input and closing choruses as on pillars.

Jesus helps the homeless
The fact that this world order today is a "secular liberals", as the Americans born in 1947, John Adams describes himself off. In his passion while there are parallels to Bach: The libretto tells the story of the arrest, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus with biblical texts. And Adams joins as Bach told scenes with arias and choruses.

But not in the biblical texts, the emphasis is on texts mostly female social activists of the 20th Century. And from the women's perspective is - at a center for homeless people in the slums of Los Angeles - and the passion story is telling: The three singers roles are deprived of wavering between faith and doubt Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and their brother Lazarus. Jesus - the love story with the other Mary, and his arrest by the police - is only indirectly referred to in the statements of characters to speak.

Human rights oratory
Thus, this passion is a "human rights oratorio", as one critic wrote, Bach takes you participate in the sufferings continue to fight against this. To what extent this is a spiritual work?

Central to Peter Sellars, who joined repeatedly scandalous social criticism with spiritual themes, is the reversal of a woman in men's perspective. Spirituality that connects to an ethical claim exhausted, often in men in intellectual concepts.

Women lived, however, as Mary, Jesus bore in her womb, her spirituality with flesh and blood. As victims of social violence, such as by its commitment to children, families and communities Therein for Sellars is a spiritual transcendence over your own ego out, which is directly affected by the Art: These so Sellars acted more on how you can go beyond the self.

Important factors like Bach is on the individual community, for this oratorio also the scenic interplay of the three singers and dancers is: the latter is set to tell what the characters and bring their doubles as their emotions.

But semi-staged performances are not only capable tournee saving versions of stage productions? "No," laughs Sellars: "The difference is comparable to that between symphony and chamber orchestras. Also, since both have their own merits. "

Adams' music, however, is complex, with its symphonic orchestral sounds and vibrant melodies. Sellars raves about the "new dimensions", the Conclude as the minimal music pioneer became known composer here: The dazzling harmonies is sometimes outrageously bold.

Salvation in the dissonance
Bach also wrote, in the same waves of the opening chorus of the St. John Passion, a then unheard of dissonant music. But the painful rubbing of the tones was together until the early 20th In both senses of the word "passion" - century expression of suffering and emotional arousal, which tended toward resolution and redemption.

Ironically, the emancipation of dissonance, however, opened the door to the Modern Spirituality: In tightly layered, inconceivable and incomprehensible shapeless buzzing sound fields that is expressed, which is part of transcendence over everything sensuous beyond. That Adams used as another narrator three countertenors, merge their angelic voices, shows that there is a circle back to the time of Bach closes. Read Less

John Adams has reworked his Passion/oratorio, Peter Sellars staged it and Gustavo Dudamel really brings it to life.

"The Gospel According to the Other Mary" is now another "Other Mary," the "Mary" we have been waiting for.

John Adams' Eastertide combination of Passion and oratorio was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and given its premiere late last spring at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Impressive and stirring as it was, the work felt a masterpiece still in the making. It was long (135 minutes rather than the 90 minutes expected) and unwieldy. It was delivered late and required a draining last-minute preparation for Gustavo Dudamel and the orchestra at the same time they were already overextended by staging Mozart's "Don Giovanni."

"The Other Mary" came back Thursday night, revised by the composer and now staged by Peter Sellars, who also compiled the libretto. The work's great ambitions have been realized. The L.A. Phil has shown yet again that it matters. Dudamel has risen to new heights as an interpreter. Though restrained, this was the most penetrating performance of anything I have yet heard him give.

"The Other Mary" was not easy listening when it was given in concert, and it is not easy to watch staged either. The Crucifixion and Resurrection are depicted from the perspective of Mary Magdalene's suffering and also through the poetry and juddering experiences of more contemporary, mostly women, writers.

Sellars makes everything on stage abstract. He designed a very basic set of a wooden platform on one side of the stage and a table on the other. He has added to the trio of solo singers and the countertenors (who serve as narrators) a trio of dancers. The result is new, gripping expression on every level.

Adams noted at a pre-concert talk that he spent three months shortening and rewriting the oratorio. The show on Thursday was not appreciably shorter, still 135 minutes of music. The music was not substantially different. But the focus was. There was less force and more grace, the dramatic impact utterly sure.

The soloists were the same, but they have now lived the roles for a year and were, thus, changed. Sellars had mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor cut her long hair short, a controversial move. But not only did it add to her vulnerability as Mary, it made her facial expressions stand out with astonishing vividness. With the help of James F. Ingalls' precise yet restrained lighting, which captured the smallest subtleties of expression, O'Connor reminded me of Renée Jeanne Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 silent film, "The Passion of Joan of Arc," one of the most affecting portrayals of human suffering in all art.

Oscar-winning actresses could do well to study O'Connor's performance, with its shocking revelations of pain and the utterly convincing revelations of spiritual acceptance. That came through in the beauty of her singing, the way every word was given meaning, the look in her eyes and the way her hands moved.
She had exceptional help from the effusively rich contralto Tamara Mumford (Martha) and from Russell Thomas (Lazarus), whose tenor resounded like a force of nature. There was further help from Mark Grey's amplification, which highlighted the vocal essence of each singer and provided an ideal balance with the orchestra.

No choreographer is credited, but movement was very important and the dancers — Michael Schumacher, Anani Sanouvi and Troy Ogilvie — became integral. When the slighter Schumacher, for instance, carried the larger Sanouvi (yet another force of nature) on his back, the weight of Jesus' cross became something palpable.

There was lightness too. Dunya Ramicova's pajama-like costumes supplied one kind of color. The countertenors (Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley), anything but vocally pale, added other kind of color. But the real color came from the orchestra.

As was apparent last year, Adams' score is true to a very broad range of theatrical and spiritual needs, and in its final form it now has, along with the power to produce shock and awe, the power to remove shock and awe. Sellars has never been more unforgiving in portraying dying and death, and Adams gives the director plenty of forceful music to work with.

But the essence of "The Other Mary" is rebirth. Adams' representation of it, whether in the most beautiful Passover scene in all of music or the delicate orchestral effects describing baby frogs bursting forth from suckholes, are musical reasons to embrace life.

As the mastermind behind the performance, Dudamel did little to draw attention to himself, but a performance of this caliber didn't, like the frogs, come from nowhere. The L.A. Phil sounded inspired from beginning to end. The Los Angeles Master Chorale, which was placed on a long platform behind the orchestra, added a further irreplaceable dramatic dimension.

With Dudamel called back to Caracas to conduct at Hugo Chavez's funeral, the Master Chorale's music director, Grant Gershon, will conduct "The Other Mary" Friday at Disney Hall. Dudamel returns for the final Sunday performance and then takes the work in its full staging on the orchestra's hugely ambitious tour next week to Europe and New York City. This is too big just for us. Read Less

A John Adams ‘Passion' staged by his regular collaborator Peter Sellars sounded promising, even if the latter was going to ‘craft' the libretto. As Sellars's synopsis made clear, The Gospel According to the Other Mary would juxtapose Biblical events with some quintessentially Californian struggles.

The Bethany where Christ raised the dead Lazarus would be twinned with the Bethany where oppressed farm-workers were beaten up by police, and where the jail resounded with the shrieks of a woman in the throes of drug-withdrawal – which is how the opening scene began. Creative liberties would be taken with the original story: in place of the ‘reformed prostitute' version of Mary Magdalene, this Mary and her sister Martha would be social activists, while Lazarus would be their brother, thus allowing Sellars to weave it all into a neatly feminist family fable. 

The Barbican hall was inventively reconfigured: while the Los Angeles Master Chorale occupied a platform at the rear, the central part was filled with the LA Philharmonic, and a dais at the front served as the acting space, with Gustavo Dudamel's podium squeezed in at one side. There were uncomfortable disjunctions in the drama, however, as well as between the score and its libretto. 

Sellars's clumsy blend of cod-Biblical and contemporary speech was interlarded with Spanish, Latin, and American poetry; although the orchestral and choral accompaniment had the graceful repetitiveness one associates with Adams, the soloists' melodic mode was relentlessly jagged and atonal.

Constant doubling meant that one didn't know who was who, what was going on, or why everyone on stage seemed so desperately worked up. Kelley O'Connor and Tamara Mumford (the mezzos incarnating Mary and Martha), plus Russell Thomas's Lazarus, plus the three countertenors incarnating Jesus (an interesting touch which worked well), all sang heroically, but this just sharpened the general sense of wasted effort. 

If the first act was dismal, the second was a sort of redemption, as Adams settled into the tonal mode which suits him best, and Sellars began to work his usual magic with moving, living flesh, Mary and Lazarus each being shadowed by a dancer. There was visceral horror in the procession to Golgotha, and cathartic wonder (lit by a musical radiance) as the reality of the Resurrection sank in. And it was good to see superstar Dudamel humbly doing a complex technical job. Somehow I don't think this misshapen piece will join the roster of Adams classics. Read Less

When the Los Angeles Philharmonic made the Venezuelan phenomenon Gustavo Dudamel its music director there were inevitable accusations that the orchestra had plumped for pizzazz over profundity. But the dazzling four-day residency of concerts and workshops that the LA Philharmonic and its young maestro have just completed at the Barbican suggested, in the most contemporary way, that pizzazz and profundity are not mutually exclusive. 

The orchestra sounds in fantastic shape: translucent yet punchy; precise but full of players who know how to phrase beautifully. Dudamel was the very reverse of attention-seeking, yet his control was admirable. And, most impressive of all, the Angelenos had the vision and bravery to bring two entire concerts of pieces composed in the past six years — and deliver them with irresistible finesse and fervour. 

This was especially true of Saturday's epic offering: the European premiere of The Gospel According to the Other Mary, which reunites the composer John Adams with, as librettist and stage director, his old maverick chum Peter Sellars. And this massively ambitious oratorio certainly was staged. At the front the solo singers closely interacted with three marvellously lithe dancers, while behind the orchestra the excellent Los Angeles Master Chorale not only sang from memory but added their own strikingly angular unison gestures (a Sellars trademark). 

As the name suggests, this is the story of Christ's arrest, crucifixion and resurrection told from the viewpoint of women — Mary Magdalene and her more pragmatic sister Martha (Kelley O'Connor and Tamara Mumford — both remarkable, with Mumford hitting some extraordinary baritone-register notes). A trio of countertenors narrates most of the story in astringent close harmony, and a terrifically intense tenor (Russell Thomas) sings the resurrected Lazarus. 

But nothing by Adams and Sellars is without present-day allusions, and here the familiar Passion narrative is spliced with protest poetry and evocations of modern ghettos and rebellions. Opinions will differ about the cogency or necessity of that. But what's beyond question is the richness and variety of Adams's masterly score: more than two hours of music ranging from passages of ethereal beauty to savage, pulsing onslaughts, and all expertly tailored to the drama's meaning and mood. 

It says something for the new pieces heard in Thursday's concert that they weren't entirely eclipsed by Adams's vast score. Joseph Pereira's Percussion Concerto, featuring the composer as soloist (he is the orchestra's timpanist), was frantically virtuosic, not just in its demands on the central player but in the way that his timbres and rhythms were transfigured for a chamber orchestra — though the sepulchral slow movement seemed to drift. 

Nothing drifted, however, in Unsuk Chin's new chamber-orchestra piece Graffiti. Despite its name, it is ultra-sophisticated, many-layered and rooted in the Central European complexities of Ligeti and Lutoslawski. It also sounds fiendish to play, yet these players seemed to be having a ball. How exhilarating to hear new music championed with such exuberance. Read Less

The European premiere of John Adams' latest large-scale choral work is the centrepiece of Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Barbican residency. First performed in Los Angeles in May last year and co-commissioned by the Barbican, The Gospel According to the Other Mary is a "passion oratorio", consciously designed by Adams and his librettist/director Peter Sellars as a companion piece to El Niño, their nativity oratorio which premiered in 2000. Like that work (and, arguably, Adams' operas The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic too), The Other Mary hovers somewhere between opera and concert work, and can be performed either fully staged or in a concert hall; here Sellars staged it in the main Barbican hall.

Like El Niño too, the text is a patchwork of extracts – from both old and new testaments, Hildegard of Bingen, and a variety of 20th-century writers, ranging from Primo Levi to June Jordan. The Other Mary is, Sellars has said, an attempt to "set the passion story in the eternal present, in the tradition of sacred art", so the narrative constantly merges the biblical past and the world today. The story unfolds from the point of view of Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and brother Lazarus, who seem to commute between the two time frames, and so create parallels between the story of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, and real 20th- and 21st-century events such as Carlos Chavez's campaign for farm workers' rights in Calfornia and the revolutions of the Arab spring.

It's ambitious, frequently tendentious and, at two and quarter hours, perhaps too long. Sellars' staging, mostly on a platform in front of the orchestra, with the chorus, principal singers and dancers wearing a mix of work clothes and flowery trousers and t-shirts, seems desperately earnest and contrived. But what saves the whole project from collapsing into sanctimonious attitudinising is Adams' remarkable score, which contains some of his finest music for many years. For whatever reason, the subject matter seems to have unlocked a whole new expression range in his writing; there's a sinewy angularity to his melodic lines, a crisp astringency to his harmonies, that have only been hinted at before, while his ear for sonority, with a cimbalom adding an extra tang to the textures this time, is as sure as ever.

Bach's passions are inevitably one model for what Adams and Sellars have done; Leonard Bernstein's Mass is perhaps another less obvious one. The narrative function of the passion evangelist is taken over by three countertenors (Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley here), either singing solo or as a raptly entwined trio; Mary is a mezzo (Kelley O'Connor), Martha a contralto (Tamara Mumford) and Lazarus a tenor (Russell Thomas). It's the tenor who has the nearest thing to a setpiece number in the whole work, near the end of the first act, when he sings of the Passover ritual, in a way that irresistibly recalls the similar catharsis of the setting of Donne's Batter My Heart at a similar moment in the scheme of Doctor Atomic.

If the urgent choral writing seems to derive directly from the turba choruses in the Bach passions, Adams injects them with an jagged, irresistible energy of his own, right from the opening moments of the work. They were superbly delivered by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, but then everything about the performance under Dudamel was vivid and immaculate; musically it was a remarkable occasion.

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Have you heard the good news? The Los Angeles Philharmonic have recently formed a partnership with the Barbican, and they were strutting their impressive stuff in London last week for their first International Associate Residency. Also: Christ died for our sins and was reborn.

This second point is, of course, precisely what all passions are about, and John Adams and Peter Sellars' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, which here received its European première, is indeed a passion. But I was still a little taken aback by the force with which this piece rammed home its religious agenda; whether or not this is deliberate on the part of its creators, it certainly came across as preachier than I had expected, and while musically this was a superb evening, dramatically it seemed very flawed.

The piece focuses on various lesser-publicised incidents from the final weeks of Christ's life: the raising of Lazarus dominates Act I, and in alongside the traditional passion narrative in Act II is a scene entitled "Arrest of the Women" – not an episode which features prominently in most accounts, but consistent with Sellars' habit of engaging with female perspectives. This habit is also evident the choice of texts which he selected for the piece: they are by a similar pool of writers to those who informed this work's precursor, El Niño (2000), which tells the story of Christ's birth. Here, women including Hildegard of Bingen, Rosario Castellanos and Dorothy Day – the American social activist often associated today with soup kitchens – all figure prominently in the libretto.

What results from this unusual collection of texts and strange reconfiguration of the narrative is a dramatic work constantly at pains to remind its audience of the contemporary relevance of its story. Mary and her sister Martha set up a home for destitute women, forcing a parallel with more recent figures such as Day; the soldiers' brutality against women is also drawn into parallel with similar recent incidents. The dancers and singers, including the chorus, are all dressed in casual, contemporary clothes. It is all meant, presumably, to add a sense of immediacy, a visceral thrill to it all, but frequently the random shifts through time feel jolting, and the staging slightly primary-school. The awkwardness of the dramatic realisation is not aided by some rather clunky choreography – all impressive, given the little space available at the front of the Barbican Hall stage, and all brilliantly realised by the three dancers (and the singers too), but not inspiring; less still revelatory.

If all of this sounds unappetizing now, it didn't on Saturday night. I think this is my favourite John Adams score, and the orchestra and chorus, not to mention the soloists, were completely beyond reproach. The first half is especially scintillating (though slightly too long), with a sense of thrust which shows Adams' real skill as a dramatic artist. The high-point of this half is Lazarus' aria after Jesus brings him back to life, a phenomenal conglomeration of musical styles with immense energy and a hard, electric pulse. But what was fascinating about this aria was the sinister edge which lurked in the music as Lazarus, seeming possessed, extolled the virtues of his saviour: there was something questioning about Adams' setting in its relentlessness, something querying, rather than subscribing to, the idea of blind devotion.

Act II was a more demure affair, and not quite as effective for me; it didn't capture the spiritual highs it seemed to aim for, although there was still much to enjoy in the broader-than-usual orchestral soundworld Adams found throughout. A cimbalom was a prominent addition to the orchestra, and gave a bright, unusual hue to the texture, and the whole evening was a feast of inventive scoring from all the corners of the stage. It was interesting to hear Adams in the pre-concert talk discuss the revisions he had made since this work's first, unstaged performances last May (read Ted's review here) – I don't know how much has been changed, but it's very clear now that if the work overall is at fault, then Adams is not to blame.

Nor, of course, are the performers, all of whom were sensational. The Los Angeles Philharmonic are almost worth emigrating for, sounding clinical but also full, always immensely sensitive and alert to a reserved but incisive Gustavo Dudamel. The LA Master Chorale are the best chorus I have ever heard, by some distance, and they did utter wonders in this usually tough acoustic. And the soloists shone as well, with countertenors Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley spotless and sensuous as the trio of narrators, and mezzos Kelley O'Connor and Tamara Mumford both compelling in the highs and (many) lows of their vocal lines. Heldentenor Russell Thomas was a magnificently massive-voiced Lazarus, stealing the show in Act I to the effect that it was a shame that he wasn't given as much to do in Act II.

But what can anyone have Lazarus do during the crucifixion? For all its musical brilliance, this was an evening hobbled by its dramatic structure. My star rating is an average: the music deserves more; the drama less. Read Less

'The Gospel According to the Other Mary' by John Adams, played by the LA Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, had a puzzling start but by the end achieved a dignified simplicity, says Ivan Hewett. 

In The Gospel According to the Other Mary, the "other Mary" is the despised one: Mary Magdalene, the penitent "fallen woman". Peter Sellars, librettist of this new oratorio performed by the LA Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, has given this retelling of the Passion story a political twist. Here Mary has become a fighter for the poor, in some undefined Middle-Eastern slum. She runs a hostel for homeless women with her sister Martha. She's feisty, but wounded by memories of her father's abuse of her. One day, the two sisters welcome Christ into their home. He raises their brother Lazarus from the dead, and is revealed to be a revolutionary. Then the police come knocking. 

The story may concern poverty, but the means are anything but humble. Composer John Adams employs a large orchestra, rich with sounds of bass guitar and cimbalom. There's a chorus, who sometimes are detached observers, sometimes angry participants. 

Three dancers on the tiny raised stage represent many things; the spirit of the reviving Lazarus, Christ's agonised trudge to Golgotha. Three countertenors narrate. As for Christ Himself, he is everywhere and nowhere, fleetingly hinted at in a dancer's body, or the counter-tenors' beautifully drooping tones. 
One can only salute the care, attention to detail and sincere intentions that went into the oratorio's making. Unfortunately, as with other pieces from the Adams/Sellars workshop, this one suffers from an excess of good intentions. Sellars can't resist loading the text with a superfluity of poetic and political reference. This often thwarted our natural urge to empathise, as we stopped to puzzle over yet another obscure line flashed up on the surtitles. A touch of humble straightforwardness might have been helpful in a tale that hymns the virtues of the poor. 

And yet in the second half, as Christ is arrested, crucified and interred in the Sepulchre, everything came together. The impassioned, dignified performances of Kelley O'Connor as Mary and Tamara Mumford as Martha were a marvel. But what lifted the piece towards the heights was Adams's sombre, many-layered music. At the end, as Mary recognises the risen Christ, it finally achieved the rich simplicity it had been searching for.  Read Less

In a fusion of past and present, composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars mix New Testament excerpts about Mary Magdalene's life with abstract, often obscure musings from sundry sources

Since their first collaboration on the opera Nixon in China, composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars have not shied away from difficult subjects, and there were high hopes for this European premiere of their latest project, The Gospel According to the Other Mary. Like other works they've produced, it's not quite opera, not quite oratorio. Sellars provided the text, mixing New Testament excerpts about Mary Magdalene's life with abstract, often obscure musings from sundry sources, Hildegard of Bingen to Primo Levi.

In typical Sellars style, the story shuttles between biblical episodes and a parallel present, in which Mary is a political activist. Jesus does not appear; his life and death is more narrated (by three falsetto Narrators) than presented "live". It would work without staging; unfortunately Sellars provided one anyway, with Eighties disco calisthenics for three dancers and a combination of semaphore and bookies' tic-tac for the singers.

Adams's treatment of the dense scenario consists mostly of undulating recitatives over an intricately woven orchestration studded with glittering details. The vocal lines straddle opera and musical theatre, with odd phrases repeated to show this is no mere sing-song setting. In moments of high intensity, the singers delivered, Russell Thomas's Lazarus singing as if to raise the dead. As Mary and Martha, Kelley O'Connor and Tamara Mumford were hardly less committed.

This was the centrepiece of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Barbican residency, and Gustavo Dudamel conducted with assurance. Although his players and chorus responded with blazing enthusiasm, Adams's Gospel failed to convert this listener. Others disagreed with noisy enthusiasm. Read Less