When Apollo’s Fire performs Bach’s “St. John Passion” this weekend, expect it to sound a little different than it did the last time the orchestra played it seven years ago. “We’ve really evolved,” says director Jeannette Sorrell. “We’ve spent more time with the music, so we’ve become freer. We’re less tied to the page.” Bach’s musical account of Jesus Christ’s last days will be performed in English rather than the traditional German. Yet Sorrell remains faithful to the composer’s “text painting” — moments when the music mimics the literal meaning of the words. “[Jesus] is human and very real,” she says. “To make him entirely divine is not as moving.”
Fri., March 30, 8 p.m.

This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2007.