Rafael Payare

On Saturday, May 27, The San Diego Symphony completed the 2022-2023 Jacobs Masterworks season at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. The event was a multi-sensory extravaganza that maximized the potential of both the venue and the orchestra.

The concert started with the Pelléas and Mélisande Suite by Gabriel Faure. Pelléas and Mélisande was a play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck and was most famously utilized as an opera by Claude Debussy. Faure’s music was written as incidental music for an 1898 production of the play in London. The music is delicate and lyrical and the San Diego Symphony sounded fantastic as music director Rafael Payare led us through the tragedy of forbidden love.

The concert doubled down on the French by then presenting La Péri: Poème dansé by Paul Dukas. Of course, Dukas is best known for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as realized in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. One does wonder if that piece would be famous at all if it hadn’t featured one Mickey Mouse. La Péri: Poème dansé was an entertaining piece of music but ultimately forgettable despite the raucous treatment is was given by Payare and his San Diegans.

After intermission, we were treated to Santa Cruz de Pacairigua by Venezuelan composer Evencio Castellanos. Far from forgettable, this was a memorable piece of music as was the performance. I’ve listened to it a few times since the concert and continue to be enthralled with the dance rhythms and folk melodies employed throughout.

The final piece of the season was Cantata Criolla by Venezuelan composer Antonio Estévez. This epic composition depicts a singing competition between The Devil and Florentino. The piece is scored for orchestra, chorus, baritone solo, and tenor solo. The text was taken from a mythic poem by Alberto Arvelo Torrealba.

I must admit I found the text, in its translated form, to be too obscure. After the concert, I found a translation that was far more accessible to the simple patterns of my literary tastes.

In the role of The Devil, baritone Gustavo Castillo burst onto the stage with an opening vocal salvo that established he was there to effing sing. I raised my eyebrows and thought, “So it’s going to be like that?”

I was less impressed with tenor Aquiles Machado in the role of Florentino. The voice was hazy and sounded a bit fatigued from the very start. Had this performance been in a concert hall without amplification things could have gotten dodgy. As it was, Machado carried on and turned in a performance that expressed the story well.

Of Rafael Payare and the orchestra, I’ve said much in the past few months. To say that they are storming the gates of musical glory feels insufficient. The most impressive element of the performances this season has been the consistency. The ceiling has always been high in San Diego but the floor was low. The floor has been raised and the ceiling might as well not exist because the sky is the limit.