The Bible and Music

On Friday night, I went to the performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Palladium with Brittany Head and I believe that it was money well spent.

The Palladium is a beautiful concert hall that Brittany and I both ended up taking pictures of once we found our seats before the performance.  The walls were lined with box seating all the way to the ceiling with a balcony to the back of the hall and floor seating, which is where we were sitting.  The Indianapolis Symphonic Choir entered with the orchestra organizing in their sections on the stage, the choir members sitting in the seats above the stage, and the four soloists sitting in the front close to the conductor.

I went into the performance thinking that I would become disengaged to say the least, but I am happy to say that this was not the case.  In the beginning, the orchestra played without any singing.  They were very good and I found myself watching the violinists the most.  I thought this was going to be how the majority of the performance was going to be, but all of a sudden the choir stood up and the very first note they sang gave me goosebumps.  I immediately thought “this is going to be better than I thought” and I was right–it was much better than I originally thought it would be.

Elijah is about Elijah and his travels as a prophet and his interactions with angels, townspeople, and King Ahab among others and ends at his death.  I thought the soloists did a great job of portraying the moods of the characters, especially the soprano soloist when she was acting as the widow crying over the death of her son.  She did a great job of expressing sadness in the beginning of the section and as her interaction with Elijah continued, her tone changed to express joy as “the soul of [her] son reviveth.”  All in all, I believe this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I’m glad that this class presented it to me.

~Alyssa