Choir will sing the entire `Messiah': It's more than `hallelujah'.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

Everyone loves "The Messiah" this time of year. Choral groups sell lots of tickets, soloists get jobs all over the country and ordinary people who rarely attend classical music concerts get to hear something that's both high class and familiar.

It's rare, though, to be able to hear the entire 21/2-hour version of George Frideric Handel's great oratorio. In our made-for-TV culture, the work almost always gets cut down to "Messiah lite."

Not this week.

The Eugene Concert Choir is doing the entire "Messiah" in a single performance Sunday afternoon at the Hult Center.

"Every note of it," says the choir's artistic director, Diane Retallack, who will conduct.

"Most people do selections. We are doing it complete. It's actually an oratorio about the life of Christ. There is a Christmas portion to it. But it goes on from there to his teachings and his sacrifice. When you hear the entire dramatic oratorio, it's really an amazing experience."

Handel, a contemporary of J.S. Bach, wrote the oratorio, based on a libretto by Charles Jennes, during 24 days in 1741. It was never published in his lifetime, and Handel performed it in various configurations.

Even today, different arias can be assigned to different solists.

That led to one of the worst "Messiah" disasters soprano Maria Jette has ever seen. Jette, an internationally known singer who frequently performs in Eugene with the Oregon Bach Festival and at the Shedd Institute, will sing here Sunday afternoon.

She was once at an under-rehearsed performance - she calls them "drive-by Messiahs" - when the mezzo began an aria. Everything started just fine. Then singer and orchestra began to part ways.

"Suddenly there is this cacophony," Jette says. "But they continued on with the music. She would come in again. It would sound great and then sound terrible."

The stunned singer finished her piece and sat down, bewildered. It turned out the orchestra had been playing the aria in the version written for bass.

"Ever since then," Jette says, "I always keep my finger in the book at the bass version. Just in case."

Jette, who sings a wide repertoire of music, says she's always wanted to perform a series of chamber duets in which Handel set secular lyrics to music from "The Messiah."

"They are just the most delightful things to do. Tricky, modified cantata format, a long A section and then the next section sad and slow.

"`All We Like Sheep' is in one of them, but it's this terrible doggerel poetry: `Do not betray me with thine eyes...'"

The four other soloists appearing in Sunday's performance are mezzo-soprano Barbara Rearick, who has sung with such orchestras as the American Symphony Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Houston Symphony; countertenor Steven Rickards, recently back from a performance in Oslo, Norway, of Bach's B-Minor Mass with the Baerum Bach Choir; tenor Robert Breault, who made his New York City Opera debut during the 2004-05 season as Alfredo in "La Traviata," a role he also sang with New Orleans Opera; and bass-baritone Stephen Bryant, who has sung with the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Santa Fe Opera and the Indianapolis Opera.

CONCERT PREVIEW

The Messiah

What: Eugene Concert Choir, conducted by Diane Retallack, performs G.F. Handel's oratorio - unabridged

Soloists: Maria Jette, soprano; Barbara Rearick, mezzo-soprano; Steven Rickards, countertenor; Robert Breault, tenor; and Stephen Bryant, bass-baritone

When: 2:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Hult Center, Seventh Avenue and Willamette Street

Tickets: $15 to $34, through the Hult box office 682-5000