DANCING THROUGH HANDEL: UNIQUE INVETIVENESS 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of May 31-June 7, 2009
                                                                  Vol. 11, No.  107
        BERKELEY---The extraordinary Handel secular oratorio we call “L’Allegro, ...” (1740) returned here in its dance version and showed unusual staying power, even the fourth time around. 
            However unlikely a hit, it took choreographer Mark Morris to plumb its musical depths, set it in motion via his 26 East-Coast-based barefoot modern dancers, and blend it with one of the great period-instruments orchestras, the Philharmonia Baroque, and the sonic marvels of the U.C. Berkeley Chamber Chorus. 
            For once I got a front-row seat at the May 29 opening in Zellerbach Hall, a unique acoustic experience, giving the sensation of being IN a pit orchestra instead of just hearing it. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience well worth trying; it makes all previous concert sensations pale in comparison.
            The idea of setting an entire baroque oratorio to modern dance would seem preposterous to any one this side of Morris, who first pulled it off in the early 1990s. His dancers flow in lyrical modern style, without attempts to mimic baroque dances, and their moves are quite virtuosic, full of tumbles, somersaults, and complex lifts. The overall image is of happy young people celebrating their vitality in various permutations (including boy-girl, girl-girl, boy-boy). In these pastoral scenes by the poets Milton and Jennings, they appear as a very appealing troupe (very large too as modern-dance troupes go), and they go on and off the stage in floods or rivulets, natural as can be.
            Morris interjects ample humor to his scenes, nowhere better than the hunt scenes with its dancers on all four turned into retrievers, or alternatively hunt horses. There’s a disarming innocence about it all, at times like young kids at play.
            Morris also hatches new ideas, one being two-dimensional movement in vertical planes superimposed, as if looking at three or four see-through movie screens behind one another. Stunning symmetries of moving bodiesm often in chains with arms linked,  are thus overlaid to dazzle the eye. Overall, symmetries (such as the vertically stacked heads) are recurrent themes, as is the message of a world harmony.
            The no-star dancers execute this with delirious enthusiasm, keyed closely to the beat of conductor Jane Glover of Britain, her  subtle finger motions nuanced to bring out the best of Philharmonia as well as of that lyrical chorus of some 40 voices. Philharmonia featured master players, including the virtuoso of the wooden transverse flute Steven Schultz rendering bird calls, and oboist Gonzalo Ruiz. The only jarring note was the use of the celeste, an instrument that did not come into play until more than 100 years later. 
            The vocalists were some of Philharmonia’s favorite all-stars: Lisa Saffer, Christine Brandes, the lyric tenor to watch from Scotland Iain Paton, and James Maddalena. They had a ball r-r-r-rolling all those Miltonian R’s.
            Why bring back the Handel-Morris “L’Allegro” to Cal for the fourth time? Because it’s a worthy and popular salute to the astute director of Cal Performances at Zellerbach, Robert Cole, retiring this summer after 23 remarkable years at the helm. Cole has roped in all the top dance companies, including the fabled Bolshoi Ballet coming from Russia June 5-7.
            (Updated June 4.)
            Handel’s allegorical oratorio “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato” (1740), in English despite the title. Mark Morris Dance Group, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and Marika Kuzma’s UC Chamber Chorus. Through May 31, Zellerbach Hall, Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, For info: (510) 642-9988, or go online. 
          ©Paul Hertelendy 2009

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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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