Out West Arts: Performance at the end of the world

A still from Powaqqatsi by Godfrey Reggio

On Tuesday night, composer Philip Glass made an appearance at the Hollywood Bowl for a concert performance of his score to accompany a screening of the 1988 film Powaqqatsi. This is the second of the three scores Glass wrote to accompany the documentary films of Godfrey Reggio in the 1980s all titled with Hopi language words and meant to reflect on the state of the world with nothing more than Glass’ music and video images of humans and the world they have created around them. Last summer, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented the first film in the series Koyaanisqatsi with the assistance of the Philip Glass Ensemble to much fanfare and an excited audience. So this return engagement, complete with a new revision of the score by Glass with a commission by the L.A. Philharmonic, was set up to build on that momentum.

Unfortunately, Powaqqatsi, which roughly translates as “life in transformation,” is not as strong a film or soundtrack as its predecessor. By 1988, Glass’ style had begun to change and the repetitive segments of his music were taking a backseat to other elements creating something that was less harsh and softer-edged. Powaqqatsi is rife with more accessible melodies and a substantial vocal part for both children’s chorus and a handful of soloists. Electronic instruments play a bigger role as well with keyboards and whatnot percolating along, resulting in moments that sound like they might have come from any motion picture soundtrack of the period. For this performance the original conductor for the film’s soundtrack, Michael Riesman who is also the Philip Glass Ensemble’s Music Director, reprised his leadership and he gave a best-case scenario for the piece with Glass playing keyboards himself. The Los Angeles Children’s Choir sounded spectacular and gave a wonderful performance without the help of scores for their extended parts in the show. Anne Tomlinson has led the group to a number of substantial performances with the L.A. Phil in the past, but this one stood out as one of the best performances the ensemble has given.

But, despite some fine performances from the Philip Glass Ensemble as well as members of the L.A. Philharmonic, you could easily close your eyes and think of the name Vangelis instead of Philip Glass. Of course, there are no pre-WWII British athletes in Powaqqatsi, but instead images of third-world venues including Peru, Egypt, Nepal, and Kenya with Brazil and Hong Kong thrown in for good measure. The concept is generally to contrast native local cultures with the face of modern industrialization. So you have lots of quaint shots of people in colorful costumes dancing around scenic mountaintops contrasted with geometric aerial shots of villages and trucks kicking up clouds of billowing smoke. Reggio’s film is pretty, but the kind of ethnographic tourism that makes up the bulk of the film looks dated and somewhat problematic. Powaqqatsi delivers all the gritty realism of a dancing, singing, Bollywood film. While not all the images are pleasant ones, they are all played up for their aesthetic qualities in a way that belittles some of the grueling poverty on display. Glass' comfortable ,ethnically hued score wraps all of it up in a peculiarly non-jarring context. And while that might seem like profound commentary for someone whose ideas about politics and culture have evolved little since the 1960s, today it reads as forced and glosses over the very problems it is striving to point out.

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Vasily Petrenko and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Photo: mine 2011

On Tuesday I kicked off that peculiar L.A. summertime ritual of hearing an orchestral performance at that most iconic if acoustically unwelcoming of American concert venues, the Hollywood Bowl. Besides the legendary bad acoustics and amplification, there is the profoundly middlebrow classical programming that makes the Proms look radical by comparison. But the Bowl overall is a cash cow for the L.A. Phil, so the lighter pop fare of the summer is the price one pays for the regular season’s “Green Umbrella” new music series I suppose. Still, a few worthwhile evenings creep up in the schedule every summer for the orchestra, and Tuesday was the first of those this year. The occasion this week was the return of Vasily Petrenko to the podium in the first of two performances of Sibelius and Dvorák. He's one of the most exciting young conductors in the world and we're lucky to have him in Los Angeles as often as we have in recent seasons. The night started off with a lively and exuberant turn of Dvorák’s Carnival Overture. This was quickly followed by Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 played with soloist Alexander Gavrylyuk. It’s one of those pieces that’s so familiar that I sometimes experience some dread when it shows up on a program. It’s as if all I can think about is all the ways it can go wrong. But what a pleasant and exciting surprise Petrenko and Gavrylyuk provided. The concerto sounded light and nimble, tripping along like some French work. Gavrylyuk showed some restraint at crucial moments like the concerto's opening bars that kept the performance from becoming farcical. That’s not to imply that the Petrenko or the orchestra skimped on the more dramatic moments, but the immediate quality of the performance overcame the obstacles of distance, video and amplification splendidly.

The anchor spot of the evening went to Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2. Petrenko started off with an almost machine-like approach. By this I don’t mean that I found the first movement perfunctory, but instead marked with a somewhat cold precision and exacting approach. Slowly, things began to loosen and warm up over the subsequent movements. By the final Allegro, it sounded like a full-fledged romantic symphony, lush with beautiful playing from the strings. It was a nice showpiece for principal flutist David Buck whose proving to be an especially exciting addition to the orchestra. Petrenko’s precision is a welcomed quality in the unruly acoustics of the Hollywood Bowl. His appearances here in Los Angeles are more and more impressive, and I for one can’t wait for his next trip to Los Angeles. His Thursday concert, which features Martin Chalifour playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto, and Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 should be worth catching as well if you’re in town.

Labels: Hollywood Bowl 11

Christine Brewer, Frank Porretta, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Master Chorale Photo: mine 2011

Well, it’s that time of year again: opera night at the Hollywood Bowl. In recent years, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has put on a one-night only concert performance of an opera as part of their summer season. In the last two years, this has caught the interest of music director Gustavo Dudamel who is taking advantage of the chance to conduct staple operas that have yet to come under his baton elsewhere. Last year it was Bizet’s Carmen and this year, when given the opportunity to work with soprano Christine Brewer again, Dudamel suggested Tosca according to a recent interview with her in the Los Angeles Times. Wisely, Brewer passed on this and counter-proposed Turandot instead. The role would seem like a natural choice for Brewer with her strong, powerful dramatic soprano voice. But, alas, things did not work out as perfectly as planned.

The Bowl is not the ideal venue for any classical music, much less opera by a long-shot. The sound, including all vocalists, is amplified, losing any subtly or nuance in the performance. The audience is all but encouraged to make extraneous noises with food, drink, and constant coming and going from the seating area. The L.A. Philharmonic technical folks can't seem to wrap their head around how to do readable supertitles on the four giant monitors on either side of the amphitheater. The show starts before the sun sets making the screens unreadable. Later when the sun goes down, the white lettering vanishes against the white in the coats and dresses of the performers in the video feed it shares space with despite the supertitles' semi-transparent background. Yet, despite these hurdles, Dudamel and the orchestra persevered with a big, brash sound that almost compensated for the many acoustic hurdles. The Los Angeles Master Chorale and Children's Chorus also gave wonderful performances in an opera that relies heavily on their contributions. Dudamel's tendency toward emphatic overstatement is almost perfectly suited for operatic works and large outdoor venues and for once his presence wasn't obtrusive to the musical performance at hand.

However, Dudamel and the orchestra were not blessed with vocalists who met the quality of their performance on this particular night. The originally announced Calaf, Francesco Hong, called in sick and was replaced by Frank Porretta. Porretta is capable in the part and delivered "Nessun Dorma" with enough warmth to satisfy a Hollywood Bowl audience. He was noticeably breathy through most of the evening and his tone could fairly thin. The big name on the marquee, though, was Cristine Brewer, and many in the half-full Bowl had come to hear her role debut as Turandot. Now I'm a very big Brewer fan, which means going out of my way to catch her relatively infrequent appearances in fully-staged complete operas. She is increasingly a creature of the concert stage despite having one of the most powerful and beautiful dramatic soprano voices around. I'm sad to say, Turandot did not go especially well for her on this evening. She struggled with the highest passages in Act II often scooping into the climaxes and shouting at times. The middle and lower parts of her range were lovely, but this was not a beautiful sounding performance overall.

Which left the laurels for the best vocal turn of the evening to the chronically under-appreciated Hei-Kyung Hong as Liu. Hong amazed with bright warm tone and easy heartbreaking beauty. And for a moment everything worked and was one with the operatic gods. Too bad there weren't a few more moments like it, but maybe next year.

Labels: Hollywood Bowl 11

The L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl with A.R. Rahman Photo: mine 2011

Sunday was my first visit to the Hollywood Bowl for the summer. It was the usual bundle of nostalgia-fueled expectations dashed by the bottle dropping, stack parking, acoustic disaster reality. Classical events here must be selected with great caution, and music from other genres tends to fare better in the haphazard concrete sound garden. The show was one of the Bowl’s world music events, which hosted another return visit from the beloved South Asian composer A.R. Rahman. Rahman has headlined previous India-themed programs at the Bowl as recently as 2006 and 2009. His Bollywood hit list is often mixed with appearances from other ensembles meant to highlight a variety of musical traditions from the Indian subcontinent. This year’s outing, however, offered less variety and despite the presence of a game and musically articulate Los Angeles Philharmonic, it was a sizable dud.

Last time around in 2009, Rahman led an ensemble through any number of his high-energy dance numbers and several high-voltage romantic power ballads complete with film clips and light show. But Rahman has been moving outside his Bollywood backyard more and more with American and International assignments like 127 Hours and Couples Retreat. As if to underscore this transition, the second half of Sunday’s program featured exclusively orchestra arrangements of Rahman’s film scores. There were still plenty of Bollywood favorites, but several compositions stemmed from films familiar to a broader audience including Lagaan and Slumdog Millionaire. The orchestra, conducted by Matt Dunkley, who made new orchestrations and arrangements for the scores specifically for concert performances, sounded lovely and rich as the highlight reels rolled above. But for the most part, the crowd seemed to be snoozing.

I couldn’t blame them. Rahman’s scores are beautiful and lush, but they are also surprisingly unvarying. It was difficult to distinguish one from the next as the night wore on. Applause was fitful when it came about and there was audible restlessness from some quarters of the crowd. Rahman at one point thanked the audience for supporting something other than a "rock show", but the dye was cast. Repeated calls for Rahman’s Slumdog Millionaire hit “Jai Ho” were heard. And when it arrived in a clunky uncoordinated version at the end, it couldn’t have been more disappointing. Apparently the folks at the sound board had drifted off by this time of night as well, as one could alternately hear the vocalists or the orchestra or the prerecorded beats, but never all three at the same time.

Rahamn was joined on the program by the Bollywood Step Dancers of the Sher Foundation and the ensemble “Rhythms of Rajasthan” both of who were reprising their colorful and energetic 2009 performances. Sandwiched between them was Karsh Kale, a tabla player and film composer in his own right. His easy listening take on South Asian rhythms had a contemporary feel, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being at a mid-90s Bruce Hornsby and the Range show. In the end what was most disappointing about the show was not that any of the film music wasn't professionally done, it was that it was barely distinguishable from anything else you might hear on any other film soundtrack. And sometimes, it may in fact be better to give the people what they want - especially at the Hollywood Bowl.

Labels: Hollywood Bowl 11

Did you get your exclusive offer from the Hollywood Bowl in the mail yet? I got mine today:

"As a 5 or More Concert Series patron, we invite you to take advantage of a unique opportunity at the Hollywood Bowl – Donor Valet Parking. Through this exclusive program, you can enjoy a designated, non-stacked valet parking space for each concert in your 5 or more series.

Donor Valet Parking spaces are in very high demand, but a limited number of spaces has become available for the upcoming 2011 season. This benefit is exclusively for L.A. Phil donors who contribute $2,000 or more. Donations are required per series, per space and are renewed annually.

We offer three levels of valet parking: Platinum, Gold and Bronze. Platinum level parking donors have the added benefit of using a dedicated express exit lane."

I understand L.A.’s car culture and all. And I recognize that stacked parking at the Bowl can be arduous. But a $400 (at a minimum) per show donation for valet parking? Am I missing something?

Labels: Hollywood Bowl 11