3/25/23 Oshkosh Chamber Singers Present The Creation
25 March 2023 News
OSHKOSH — The Oshkosh Chamber Singers will perform Josef Haydn’s masterpiece oratorio “The Creation” on Palm Sunday, April 2. The performance will begin at 3 p.m. at Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, St. Mary site, 605 Merritt Ave., with choir, soloists and an orchestra of regional musicians.
Soloists will be Erin Bryan, soprano, of Ripon College; Zach Durlam, tenor, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and Nathan Krueger, bass, of UW-Oshkosh.
Herb Berendsen will be the conductor.
The oratorio depicts and celebrates the seven days of the biblical creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis, and is an ode to the goodness of God. The libretto draws material from the beginning of Genesis, the Psalms and Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and the score includes the popular “The Heavens are Telling.”
The oratorio is scored for three vocal soloists, a chorus and orchestra, and is in three parts: the creation of light, heaven and earth, the sun and moon, the land and water, and plants; the creation of the animals, man and woman; and Adam and Eve on the happy first morning in the Garden of Eden, with their mutual love and praise of all creation in a “new created world.”
Haydn was inspired to write a large biblical oratorio after hearing “The Messiah” and “Israel in Egypt,” by George Frederic Handel. The parts were finished on Good Friday in 1798 and premiered in Vienna before a private audience on April 30. It was an immediate success.
One early audience member wrote: “I never left a theatre more contented and all night I dreamed of the creation of the world.”
Tickets to “The Creation” are available now from singers, at Gardina’s on Main Street and Hyde Music on South Park Avenue. Further information is available by calling 920-312-8290 or visiting OshkoshChamberSingers.org or the Oshkosh Chamber Singers Facebook page.
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