NCC, ICO/Celso Antunes

Messiah Handel

The new Gl≤r Irish Music Centre in Ennis was the opening venue for the short tour of Handel's Messiah by the National Chamber Choir and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Brazilian conductor Celso Antunes, the choir's artistic director designate. Although it doesn't have a fly-tower, Gl≤r seems like a theatre in all but name. The stage has wings and has been designed as an entirely separate entity in front of the audience, rather than as a platform within the same space as the audience, as you'd expect in a concert hall. The stage is wide but not deep, so that the four soloists in Messiah had to sit in pairs to the extreme left and right of the orchestra. Even the small numbers involved in this performance - a choir of 17 and an orchestra of 22 (a total lower than the membership of the RT╔ Concert Orchestra) - left insufficient room in front of the players for the singers' chairs.

The low-ceilinged auditorium is wide and shallow, which is likely to make for balance problems in non-amplified performances, especially those involving directional instruments or groups spread across the stage.

Countering these problems is the fact that the venue is pleasingly intimate. And, although the sound is dry, it is not as seriously cramped or squashed as it is in many theatrical venues.

In many ways, the most favourable aspects of the impression made by Wednesday's performance must be credited to the conductor. The natural inclination for musicians and singers encountering an acoustic which doesn't feed back to them is to raise the volume. Antunes's dynamic gesturing ensured that playing and singing were both shaped with sure purpose. The scaling of the performance remained in good taste, without any of the forcing that frequently arises in taxingly dry acoustics.

In the circumstances, however - this annual NCC/ICO Messiah involves one of the smallest performing groups you'll hear in this work in Ireland - Antunes's often meticulously shaped reading, seemed at times under-powered.

The sheer choral grandeur which listeners expect, and which is well within the reach of the forces employed, was really only hinted at, even in the Hallelujah Chorus. The bass soloist, Philip O'Reilly (standing in for the indisposed Martin Robson), was a tower of strength, and tenor Martyn Hill, though showing occasional signs of vocal fraying, had a similar mastery of both music and text.

Dutch mezzo soprano, Wilkete Brummelstroete, sang with a sort of perfect detachment, as if inoculated against the meaning of what she was trying to communicate. Soprano Giselle Allen, the most overtly operatic of the four, sang with greater, but rather too generalised animation. In short, the acoustic of the new venue ensured that this was more a Messiah to admire than to be deeply touched by.