San francisco chronicle
In a performance at once commanding and intimate, bass-baritone Christian Pursell made his solos and recitatives land like soul-deep testimony. He did it early on, leading “The People That Walked in Darkness” step by chromatically ascendant step to “where the light shined.” Near the end of the work, before vigorously summoning the exulting trumpets, Pursell almost breathlessly promised a “Mystery,” that in an instant “we shall all be changed.” I can’t be the only one who felt a shiver of divine possibility, set off by Pursell’s lustrous, impassioned singing.
STEVEN WINN