‘Fludde’ Awash in Bright, Young Voices

Although it had its premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival, Benjamin Britten’s setting of the late-medieval miracle play “Noye’s Fludde” does not require festival forces. All it really needs is . . . well, a large and capable children’s chorus is the place to start, and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus offered a cherishably light, bright and motion-filled production of the one-act opera this weekend at Pasadena Presbyterian Church.

From the chorus came the battalions of animals, of course, cavorting to the least penitent Kyrie imaginable, plus dancing birds and Mrs. Noye’s cadre of gossips. Ari Greif, Lauren Libaw, Theo Lebow, Andrea Beasom, Marci Pinna and Daryl Getman were Noye’s expressive ensemble of sons and daughters-in-law.

For Noye himself, Britten looked outside the children for a baritone of commanding voice and presence, which the LACC found in Nmon Ford-Livene. Saturday evening he provided rich waves of sound and physical energy, if not a lot of sensitivity to the Old English text. His implausibly contrary wife was Teresa Brown, and the orotund Voice of God, rolling down from the balcony, was erstwhile phantom Davis Gaines.

Providing the basis of the accompanying orchestra was the Orchestra da Camera of the Colburn School, reinforced by professionals in key solo positions, and topped off with recorders and hand bells. Conductor Richard Rintoul strove mightily to keep his widely dispersed performers together, and maintained a buoyant pace except when leading ponderous audience participation in the three hymns on which the work is built, musically and psychologically.

Director and choreographer Courtney Selan had to be most concerned with simple logistics, but she used the space well and came up with a real coup in the use of long swaths of fabric billowing down the aisles for the storm, although repeating the device for the post-flood rainbow proved considerably less effective.

Eric Larson designed the smartly minimalist set, looking like low-budget Robert Wilson. Joel Berlin designed the pretty pastel costumes, and LACC director Anne Tomlinson produced the show and coached that tight sextet of Noye’s children.

On the first half of the program, the younger singers of the Apprentice and Intermediate Choirs, directed by Diana Landis and Joan Reeve Owens, sailed with purity and poise through three Britten songs and Vaughan Williams’ “Orpheus With His Lute.” Rintoul led his orchestra in a hearty, well-characterized performance of Peter Warlock’s “Capriol Suite.”