Bach's "St. John," With Bernard Labadie at Carnegie Hall Bernard Labadie, center left, led Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec on Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall. Of Bach's two surviving Passions, the "St. Matthew" is the more widely revered and usually the more often performed. In recent decades, especially, the "St. John" has been deemed problematic, and undoubtedly avoided by some, for its text's many references to "the Jews" as those clamoring for Jesus" death (references stemming from Luther's translation of John's Gospel). But this spring, for whatever reasons, "St. John" reigns. Of the four major Bach Passion performances in New York - which began on Sunday afternoon, with Bernard Labadie conducting Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec in the "St. John" at Carnegie Hall - only one offers the "St. Matthew." Of three recordings recently received for review, two are of the "St. John." In recent years "St. John" performances have often come with cautionary preconcert discussions. Here, too, things have become a little topsy-turvy. The musicologist Michael Marissen, who treated the "St. John" problem comprehensively in his book "Lutheranism, Anti-Judaism and Bach's "St. John Passion" " (Oxford University Press, 1998) and speaks often on the subject, will instead give a lecture on the "St. Matthew Passion" before the Collegium Vocale Gent performs it on Saturday evening at Alice Tully Hall. Carnegie, for its part, took no special precautions for its "St. John Passion"; nor, it appears, will St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue for its presentation of the work on Friday evening. The Trinity Choir, on the other hand, is going all out for its performance of the "St. John Passion" within a liturgical context on Sunday afternoon at St. Paul's Chapel. As a sort of preparatory antidote, Trinity Wall Street announced on Monday, the Trinity Choir will present an "improvised Passion" on Sunday morning at St. Paul's, using a text created by the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now the National Conference for Community and Justice.). Clearly, a busy week awaits the inveterate Passiongoer. Mr. Labadie's performance, meanwhile, set a high standard in some respects. In prospect, its most attractive feature was the presence of the English tenor Ian Bostridge as the Evangelist. Mr. Bostridge has shown on recordings that this strenuous role, long relegated to character singers chosen, you could believe, for an annoying nasal quality, can actually be sung beautifully. He in no way disappointed in that respect here, singing with malleable phrasing and a creamy tone strained, it seemed, only for dramatic effect. But by now he has transformed the role - that of a slightly aggrandized narrator - into a star vehicle. Mr. Bostridge pretty much took over the show, determining its pacing with his dramatic pauses, handoffs and physical postures, almost as much as Mr. Labadie did. It was a remarkable performance (and greeted as such by the audience): perhaps a touch too remarkable. It certainly put the rest of the vocal soloists in the shade: the soprano Karina Gauvin, punching out accents in "Ich folge dir gleichfalls" at the cost of smooth phrasing and tending toward shrillness in "Zerfliesse, mein Herze"; the countertenor Damien Guillon, everywhere serviceable but a bit bland; the tenor Nicholas Phan, unenviably set opposite Mr. Bostridge and sounding a little out of control, despite moments of lovely tone; and the bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann, lacking both the heft and the agility for his first aria with the chorus and sounding bluff in the second. Neal Davies, the bass-baritone singing Jesus, got around the notes well, except in his lowest range, but lacked the warmth usually associated with the role. That, in fact, could be said of the performance as a whole. If the "St. John Passion" has a dominant virtue to set against the majesty of the "St. Matthew," it is its underlying warmth, and that was not always evident here. The chorus of 31 was beautifully prepared and appropriate to the size of the hall; its exquisite balances brought out fascinating contrapuntal details, especially in the men's voices, but its overall sound was assertive, at times almost aggressive (except where it most needed to be: in the cries for crucifixion, here as measured as everything else). The culminating chorus, "Ruht wohl" ("Rest well"), should be melting; here it merely spoke of consolation. The orchestra of 23, mixing period and modern instruments, played well, but this was by no means the last word on the "St. John Passion." And that is just as well, since there are those other notable performances still to come.