London Philharmonic Orchestra: El Niño – A Nativity Oratorio

John Adams El Niño (Nativity Oratorio)

Vladimir Jurowski conductor
Kate Royal soprano
Kelley O’Connor mezzo soprano
Matthew Rose bass
Daniel Bubeck countertenor
Brian Cummings countertenor
Steven Rickards countertenor
London Philharmonic Choir
Mark Grey sound designer

The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra commissioned John Adams to write a work for chorus and orchestra in the late 1990s, at about the same time as the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris asked for an opera from him. Adams’s idea to combine the two requests in an oratorio that could be staged resulted in what many believe is his finest work yet. El Niño tells a refracted version of the Nativity story transplanted to Hispanic America, presenting a feast of allusions in musical, theatrical and visual form – as joyful and rousing as Handel’s Messiah (its inspiration), as intense and direct as the Latin American texts that it uses, and as moving and sincere as anything Adams has written.