Washington Classical Review

Tianyi Lu conducted the National Symphony Orchestra Friday night at Wolf Trap. Photo: Traci Medlock/Wolf Trap

The National Symphony Orchestra continued its summer residency at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center Friday night. The program combined three contrasted works on the theme of binge drinking and sexual indiscretion, appropriate (or inappropriate, perhaps) for the season.

The evening’s excessive Virginia swelter made one appreciate the newly installed ceiling fans in the park’s outdoor theater. As lightning flashed in the distance, they created a pleasant artificial breeze throughout the venue.

The Overture from Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus opened the evening with notes of champagne and adulterous flirtation. The guest conductor was Tianyi Lu, the second woman to make her NSO podium debut this summer (after Katharina Wincor earlier this month). Born in Shanghai and raised in New Zealand, Lu has yet to hold a major post, while putting together a string of successful residencies and guest spots.

Some of that inexperience came across in the Strauss, which the NSO played with a lack of customary ensemble precision. Lu’s tempos in some cases felt sluggish, and a deficit of idiomatic Viennese sentimentality, usually expressed through extremes of rubato, was apparent. The overture’s slow central waltz proved the most memorable part, but by the pert ending of the overture, the NSO sound sparkled with crisp unity.

Lu completed her graduate studies in Cardiff and has experience conducting at the Royal Welsh Opera. This came across in the more pleasing selection of instrumental excerpts drawn from Carmen. This dose of manzanilla with a side of fatal obsession offered a teaser of sorts for Wolf Trap Opera’s upcoming performance of the Bizet favorite next month.

Acting principal oboist Jamie Roberts aced solos in the “Seguedilla” and “Aragonaise,” while principal flutist Aaron Goldman excelled in the poignant Intermezzo, accompanied by harp, that serves as introduction to Act III. The range of instrumental color and rhythmic vitality impressed in the dance pieces for full orchestra, aside from a couple prominent slips by  the trumpets.

Orff’s evergreen Carmina Burana rounded out the evening with a copious serving of wine and youthful seduction. Translations of the often salacious lyrics, in Latin and other foreign languages, were not printed in the physical program or projected on the theater’s screens. Richmond Ballet’s choreographed version of Carmina Burana, performed here two years ago, certainly made the words visually explicit.

From the softly chanted warning of the overly famous opening chorus, the Choral Arts Society of Washington sang with admirable dynamic range, lockstep rhythmic accuracy, and precise diction of the Latin texts in Germanic pronunciation. The performance marked a laudable end to the first season of the group’s new music director, Marie Bucoy-Calavan. Her appointment appears to right the ship after the first replacement for Scott Tucker in that post, Jace Kaholokula Saplan, left after only a single season.

The choir’s women produced a glowing mezzo tone in their chorus “Chume, chum, geselle min,” although the soprano section lost focus at the top in other places. The choir’s men proved most responsive to Lu’s careful beat with a tour de force rendition of the drinking chorus “In taberna quando sumus” and the equally smutty “Si puer cum puellula” ensemble. The Children’s Chorus of Washington added their pleasing voices to “Amor volat undique” and the rousing “Tempus es iocundum.”

Wolf Trap Opera fielded three strong young artists for the solo pieces, beginning with Charles E. Eaton. Following up on his star turn as Count Almaviva in Wolf Trap’s Marriage of Figaro last month, the baritone brought a velvety tone and flexible rhythmic sense to the chant-like pieces. The top of the voice carried with conviction, in full voice as the drunken abbot and in a sighing head voice in “Dies, nox et omnia.”

Travon D. Walker gave a sympathetic, unnerving performance of the single tenor aria “Cignus ustus cantat.” Sung in the voice of a swan roasting on a spit, the piece ventures into the stratosphere, which Walker met with a burnished top trailing eerily into a disembodied falsetto. Midori Marsh, a noteworthy Musetta in last summer’s La Bohème, nailed the soprano solos, especially the staccato flourishes of “Stetit Puella.” In “Dulcissime,” the soprano drew out the coloratura ecstasy of that triumphal moment up to a resplendent high D.

Lu repeatedly glossed over some musical details, especially in the endings of phrases and transitions. Yet for the most part she facilitated crisply focused orchestral playing from the NSO. Principal trumpeter William Gerlach led the fanfares in “Were diu werlt alle min,” the hilarious choral number about wanting to bed the Queen of England. The climax of “Ave formosissima,” with its shimmering orchestration, represented the height of happiness before the wheel of implacable fate turned again in the return of the opening chorus.

Wolf Trap Opera closes the summer season with Bizet’s Carmen in a single performance at the Filene Center 8 p.m. August 15. wolftrap.org