Messiah at the Beacon

So, over 4 years after the original reopening date (the hall was at first going to close from 2017-19), with Tudor remains conserved, asbestos removed and resistance on the council overcome, we now have the Bristol Beacon! Bristol Choral Society was one of the first groups to host a concert after the reopening, with Messiah, accompanied by the Bristol Ensemble.

We kept the evening short (this was the first performance I think I’ve heard or sung in which cut And he shall purify, Surely and And with his stripes). There was a review in the Bristol Post which particularly praised the sopranos’ rendering of the final page (polishes halo).

The choir are now raised some way above the conductor, and I felt the choir seating wasn’t as steeply raked as before, so if you are not near the front you have to arrange a sightline carefully. But the acoustic worked well, both from the choir’s point of view and that of the audience (we were able to make effective use of offstage trumpets too), and the wood-panelled interior is very attractive. (I never worked out what made the small rectangular shadows visible in the old lampshades; they looked like huge bacteria.) Although the playful naked cherubs with their musical instruments are no longer in the auditorium, they have not been discarded but are on view outside it. We shared our backstage facilities with the orchestra.

We return for Verdi’s Requiem in March.