Handel and Haydn’s 450th performance of ‘Messiah’ reflects the city of Boston more than ever

Celina Colby

Celina Colby is an arts and travel reporter with a fondness for Russian novels.... VIEW BIO

Banner Arts & Culture Sponsored by Cruz Companies

Handel & Haydn, the oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States, 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.

“Messiah” is George Frideric Handel’s most enduring work. Though the piece tells the story of the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it’s a loose religious narrative that doesn’t feature Christ’s voice at all. The result is an emotive exaltation and Mobley says it can create an opportunity to uplift whomever the listener desires.

“It actually creates a negative sketch. It becomes an instance where, regardless of your background, whether you come from religion or not, you are allowed to kind of fill that space with whomever you see,” said Mobley.

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.

In the past 210 years, Handel & Haydn Society has performed “Messiah” 450 times. PHOTO: ROBERT TORRES

“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. The production is no small feat. This year it requires 118 musicians coming together on the Symphony Hall stage, including high school-age singers and community members as well as the H+H orchestra, chorus and soloists.

Jeanine De Bique is a Trinidadian classical soprano praised for her joy, energy and musical versatility in the classical space. She’ll perform one of the solos in “Messiah” alongside Boston-based African American countertenor Reginald Mobley, who has worked with H+H to diversify the organizations’ programming for the last several years.

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. Twenty-seven of those singers will join the storied musical group on stage for this performance. Twenty-six high school-age singers from the Handel and Haydn Society Youth Choruses Chamber Choir will also participate.

“Messiah” will be performed at Symphony Hall November 29 and 30 and December 1.

The incorporation of community members and the continued diversification of talent on stage evolves the “Messiah” performance to better represent the city of Boston.

“The first time I actually saw a performance of ‘Messiah’ here, it became pretty apparent to me that there are actually five major professional sports teams in Boston,” said Mobley. “It seems like one of those rare moments, outside of actual sporting events, that the city of Boston feels and seems to be the most connected, the most full of pride.”