EIF Opening Concert: Buddha Passion, Usher Hall ****

There was a palpable aura of anticipation in the packed audience readying itself for the opening concert in Nicola Benedetti’s first Festival as artistic director. Her role on the night was momentary – a friendly onstage welcome before heading to a balcony seat beside her mother – but her engaging, circumspect influence was immediately soaked up in a largely impressive Scottish premiere of Chinese-American Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion, featuring the RSNO, the Edinburgh Festival and RSNO Youth Choruses and an array of classical and traditional solo performers, conducted by the composer.

There was spectacle – not just from a strikingly visual performance that had choristers laughing, clapping, gasping and tinkling Chinese bells, and an exotic cameo exquisitely danced by pipa player Chen Yining, but also experienced aurally through a score reflective of Dun’s own life experience, ancient Chinese tropes collated within a Western, and to a growing extent Hollywood, soundtrack.

Inspired by the extravagance of Buddhist murals in China’s Mogao Caves, Dun’s Passion is set out in six acts, a two-hour quasi-operatic characterisation of Buddha’s doctrine of compassion. What impressed most was the strength with which Dun’s vital self-belief translated into a response wholly at ease with the music’s hefty challenges.

From the Festival Chorus, the richness and intensity of the many religioso chants was haunting; the children’s chorus rang piercingly with ecstatic naivety. The orchestra took full advantage of the score’s restless jumble of post-Puccini, John Williams and a hint of Broadway in its eruptive, motorised finale. Among the soloists, soprano Louise Kwong and mezzo-soprano Samantha Chong were exhilarating. The stentorian throat singing of khoomei overtone vocalist Batubagen added a visceral mysticism.

If anything, Buddha Passion is a tad too long, noticeably slow in building up steam. And was the interval necessary? Probably, but not for musical reasons.

EIF music review: The Opening Concert: Buddha Passion, Usher Hall, Edinburgh