La Passion de Simone (chamber version) (2013)

Although heard in its original guise for full orchestra and chorus at the 2007 Helsinki Festival under Esa-Pekka Salonen, the chamber version provides quite different perspectives into the music, although the two scores are notably similar on page. However, the downscaling in scoring yields to heightened stage rendition of the life and writings of Simone Weil (1909-1943).

Regarding to the shape and hue of La Passion de Simone, the seventy-five-minute musical journey consists of fifteen circa five-minute meditations, or stations, referring to the Christian passiontide tradition of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, with Resurrection added.

The soprano soloist is assigned to quasi-evangelist role, accounting the events as sister of sorts, venturing forth to the limits of empathy and understanding. Although her spoken counterpart, an actor, presents us with quotes from Weil’s writings, in the end she too is somewhat distanced from mere stage personification of the actual Weil.

As one-per-part coro, the vocal quartet adaptation of the original choral part comes off wit enhanced harmonic and rhythmic acuity, while adding up to the intimacy of the stage imagery. In similar vein, the twenty-or-so members of the orchestra deliver an admirably translucent account of the instrumental fabric, giving rise to refined sonorous tapestry.

The music opens with a subtle pulse set by harp and celesta, while harmonic shapes begin to unravel in solo winds and strings. Following a twenty-four-bar introduction, the soloist delivers her first lines, heralding the Via Crucis of Weil, escorted by the vocal and instrumental ensemble. In contrast, the second station is launched with an impassioned tutti, as the score delves deeper into the story. In the course of the ensuing sections, several textures and colours are evoked, some mist-clad, others in intricate rhythmic shapes, while ideas and realities converse in music and on stage.

At the core of La Passion de Simone lies the eighth station, in which the text is comprised of a single phrase, ”God withdraws, so as not to be loved as treasure is loved by a miser”, spoken and sung simultaneously, paving the way for an extraordinary orchestral meditation. For the first and only time, the soprano soloist and the actor meet onstage, embracing each other before embarking, once again, into their opposite courses; a defining moment in the oratorio.

The score was unraveled in admirable transparency of texture and absorbingly idiomatic pacing. The instrumental fabric was given in compelling virtuosity by the members of Avanti!, providing the orchestral writing with exquisite nuance and colour.

She conveys the text with intense presence, beauty and credibility, and with an incredible control of the voice that in itself becomes an image of Weil's uncompromising character. The quartet's two women convey the roles with radiance and nuanced sound. (…) The stage performance of all singers is pervaded with the same breathtaking participation in Simone Weil's fate. (...) The elements are tremendously well matched to each other, into a touching, shaking and thoughtful whole.

The music itself has strong dramatic effects, such as when whispering, scratchy sounds suddenly open up in sudden stinging light. And when hopelessness takes over, a dense, vicious orchestral fabric provides a synaesthetic experience that no light can penetrate...

More than one performance of this Passion de Simone should have been organized. This is a show that makes the Festival important, and that is rare to find anywhere, both in terms of its essential content and of its musical and theatrical qualities.