Vocalists in the Handel & Haydn Society’s “Messiah” this season included soprano Jeanine De Bique (left; photo by Marco Borggreve) and countertenor Reginald Mobley (photo by Liz Linder). The organization has performed “Messiah” for 170 consecutive years.
In last Wednesday’s (11/27) Bay State Banner (Roxbury, Massachusetts), Celina Colby writes, “Handel & Haydn … has been presenting Handel’s famous ‘Messiah’ oratorio during the holiday season for 170 consecutive years. This Baroque composition is continuously reinterpreted for a modern audience, this year with more community collaborators and with Jeanine De Bique and Reginald Mobley as soloists…. The performance can certainly continue to serve as a celebration of Christ and the Christmas holiday, but audiences can also lift up themselves and others during the performance. Mobley recalls how the song’s meaning changed for him during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. ‘That December, while this unrest, this necessary protest, was happening in Ferguson, in St. Louis, I didn’t see the figure of Christ there,’ he said. ‘I saw Michael Brown. I saw Trayvon Martin. I saw myself.’… In the past 210 years, Handel & Haydn has performed ‘Messiah’ 450 times…. New this year is the inclusion of CitySing performers. H+H encouraged local singers to audition via social media as well as through local choral ensembles, universities and churches…. The incorporation of community members and the continued diversification of talent on stage evolves the ‘Messiah’ performance to better represent the city of Boston.”
