There’s much in “La Pasión” to like. Composer Osvaldo Golijov’s use of Latin and South American musical forms has been well documented: the piece offers a striking compendium of idioms covering a huge geographical range.

Composer Osvaldo Golijov claps next to conductor Robert Spano following the performance of his “La Pasión según San Marcos” with the BSO on Thursday night. Photo: Stu Rosner.

By Jonathan Blumhofer

It’s been almost fifteen years since Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión según San Marco debuted to rapturous critical and audience acclaim in Stuttgart. Composed to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death in 2000, Golijov’s adaptation of St. Mark’s Passion approaches the story of Christ’s betrayal and crucifixion through the prism of South and Latin American Catholic culture and Golijov’s own Jewish heritage, fusing both those influences with its composer’s broad intellectual curiosity and his experience in the United States (born in Argentina and having lived in Israel, Golijov now makes his home in Newton, MA).

This weekend, La Pasión made its return to Boston, where it received its U.S. premiere in 2001, to open the 2014 half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s (BSO) season. Golijov’s long-time champion Robert Spano presided, directing an array of vocal and instrumental soloists, along with the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, and members of the BSO.

On the surface, at least, there’s much in La Pasión to like. Golijov’s use of Latin and South American musical forms has been well documented: La Pasión is a striking compendium of idioms covering a huge geographical range. It’s filled with great instrumental color and captivating rhythms. There are swinging mariachi bands, extended episodes for percussion (played in these concerts by the phenomenal Orquesta la Pasión), and fetching Minimalist patterns.

But the piece is dogged by two significant problems, neither of which offers an easy solution. The first is that, through no fault of its own, it’s a work that’s too easily stifled by the formality of the concert hall. This is music that breathes and dances and wants to draw you in physically. Yet the incongruity of pulsing street bands and bossa nova rhythms and the stiffness of the traditional concert setting was at times jarring on Saturday night, and not in a good way. Forty years ago, Pierre Boulez opted to remove seats from Avery Fischer Hall for certain concerts to create a more immediate, less formal atmosphere for new music. Perhaps a similar approach would help La Pasión speak with easier relevance; as it is, the traditional concert setting too often emphasizes, rather than breaks down, a distance between the roots of the music and its audience. If nothing else, a broader setting would certainly aid the choreography and staging, which felt restrained and self-conscious throughout the night, even with stage extensions.

La Pasión’s other problem is more fundamental. Like John Adams in his oratorio El Niño, Golijov chose to pass various characters between different soloists and the chorus. Thus, the words of Jesus are sung by, at one point or other, a male soloist, a woman, and the choir. So, too, Mark and Judas. In and of itself, this technique isn’t a problem, but the way that Golijov approaches it is. In El Niño, Adams very clearly delineates who is what: when the three countertenors, for instance, are singing the words of the angel Gabriel, we’re not mistaking them for the narrator. Or, when the baritone soloist is portraying Joseph, we’re not going to confuse him for Herod.

That’s not the case in La Pasión. At least such details don’t come across clearly: partly because there were no supertitles and partly because La Pasión is presented in a darkened theater (to help focus the audience on its ritual aspects, though the practice wreaks havoc on those trying to read the libretto), following the specifics of much of its narrative is virtually impossible for a non-Spanish speaker. Now, that’s perfectly fine if you want to close your eyes and simply experience the music on its own merits. But if the story it’s conveying is the main point (as Golijov’s comments on the score suggest is the case) and an important part of the work is its visual component, then that’s a pretty big drawback.

Even so, the directness of much of the music goes a long way to transcending the hardest of these difficulties and the parts of La Pasión that work succeed incredibly well.

The last third of the score – from the famous aria, “Lúa descolorida,” to the closing, Reich-ian “Kaddish” – is basically flawless, musically and dramatically. Here, all the threads that don’t consistently come together earlier in the piece (the staging, which now includes a recreation of the Crucifixion: the popular music idioms turning from innocuously cliché-ridden to viciously menacing; the double chorus hurling antiphonal insults at the crucified Jesus) coalesce to form a haunting, powerful climax, arguably a kind of post-modern Gesamtkunstwerk.

And, despite dry patches, there are striking moments over La Pasión’s first two thirds. Golijov’s setting of the Eucharist is captivating in its spare devotion. The increasing violence of the succeeding hymn, “We Give Thanks unto the Lord,” makes not only for a compelling contrast but also great drama and ominous excitement. The sumptuous “Aria of Jesus,” recounting the hours in the Garden of Gethsemane just before Jesus’ betrayal, calls to mind Golijov’s Piazzolla-tinged Last Round and anticipates some of his post-Pasión writing (notably Azul).

Conductor Robert Spano leads the BSO and guests, including Reynaldo Gonzalex-Fernandez and Biella da Costa, in Golijov’s “La Pasión según San Marcos.” Photo: Stu Rosner.

Though not always favored by the amplification system (which tended to over-mic the soloists and rob the chorus of any sense of tonal bloom or warmth), soloists Biella da Costa, Reynaldo González-Fernández, and Deraldo Ferreira delivered gutsy, full-bodied accounts of their various parts. The same can be said of the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, which provided a number of additional soloists and took on a host of different roles with easy confidence. Though thin sounding, as the evening progressed the chorus managed to convey increasing depth of feeling. Jessica Rivera sang a luminous “Lúa descolorida.”

The aforementioned Orquesta la Pasión, which on this occasion included a substantial number of BSO members, brought great color and idiomatic flair to their parts, especially the extended percussion section. Alas, the rest of the reduced BSO was more or less relegated to backing-band status (especially the violins), though they played well and certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Spano conducted with much energy and spirit. Rarely is it so much fun to watch a conductor marshal his forces (and rarely does one seem so viscerally engaged in a score, at one point keeping the beat by slapping the back of the podium). It made me wonder, in perhaps a sacrilegious moment, what a forty-something Leonard Bernstein might have done with this piece.

In all, La Pasión makes for a plucky start to the BSO’s new year. Personally, I remain unconvinced that it’s the total masterpiece some proclaimed it to be in 2000, but it has much going for it. This is a score that, in individual parts and some big chunks, is impossible to dismiss out of hand and in one section at least – that gripping crucifixion scene – may well possess just what Golijov intended for the piece: some of “the truth about Christianity that Rembrandt’s paintings have about Judaism.” And that’s a pretty big accomplishment.

Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.