Press Room 
From this point of view, Arion and Les Voix Baroques’ performance at Saint-Viateur was much more accurate, in so much as it benefited from the poetic and supple performance of Jan Kobow in this famous lead role. Les Voix Baroques, 12 solo voices, a group of top-notch singers (one counts among them, for example, Shannon Mercer, Matthew White, and Joshua Hopkins) from which emerge the different characters, among them Stephan MacLeod’s very noble and paternal Jesus. Being equally talented, the conductor has the luxury of distributing the airs to diverse voices. Thus, for the tenors, Jeremy Budd sings Ach mein Sinn, while Lawrence Wiliford portrays himself as troubled and grievous in Erwäge.
The other small miracle is the woman named Meg Bragle in Es ist vollbracht. Giving to a woman—a mother—this crucial air deploring Jesus’s death attests to the great intelligence of Alexander Weimann and the humility of the contra-tenor Matthew White, Les Voix Baroques’s artistic director, who did not seek to hoard this key moment for himself. Without the inexpressive and generic succession of exaggerated sounds of a certain Agnes Zsigovics in Zerfliesse, mein Herze (the final air) this Passion went through a true crescendo, culminating with the death of Jesus and the placing in the tomb.
One grasps the truly bloodless moment of death, when air seems to become scarce. Weimann sculpts this St. John’s Passion, but what a choir of 12 individuals does not allow him, is the effect of the crowd’s vehemence at the time of Christ’s condemnation. There is not a dramatic difference between the cries of “Crucify him, crucify him” and the subsequent episode of the sharing of the robe. But what one hopes for musically is not always economically viable.
Among the great moments of this poetic and focused journey, one also holds on to the performance and the colors of the orchestra, even in a reduced formation, as in the bass air Betrachte meine Seel, another flagship moment, sublimely sung by Stephan MacLeod. If the Festival continues at this level, this year will be excellent.
