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SYMPHONY REVIEW
January 13, 2005
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By Robert Commanday
It was a just-in-San Francisco evening at Davies Hall Thursday. The Symphony's party for itself, in the person of Michael Tilson Thomas, was big fun. The occasion, as you must have read, was The Man's 60th birthday. Once a $1,000-a-plate dinner attended by all manner of The Select, giving and shaking with one hand, and eating with the other, the concert “Celebrity Salute” came off just fine. Rice-a-roni.
Nicely enough, credit for the performance's easy flow was importantly due to the birthday boy (hey, he's only 60) who announced early on that the program would move right along, no extended applause for the celebrity soloists. Also, happily, the planners had ruled out the reading of testimonials and other tedious formal drags associated with such events.
The pattern was direct and simple, showy, familiar orchestral works alternating with turns by the lustrous guest singers, MTT conducting the musicians he hailed as “the true stars, my colleagues.” Nice. Handsomely, they played the Polonaise from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, the Farandole from Bizet's second L'Arlesienne Suite, then three works more typical of MTT's style and preferences: the Scherzo from Mahler First Symphony (with expressively indulgent treatment of the Trio), his own arrangement of Gershwin's whistle-a-happy-tune Promenade (Walking the Dog), Copland's “Hoedown” (Rodeo) and, brisk and tight, Stravinsky's Scherzo à la Russe.
The stars were the big come-on, and they came on, appropriately led by the Bay Area's most generous and beloved resident artist, Frederica von Stade. She sang from Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne “Uno Jionto Postouro” and “Lou Coucut” with winning charm. Thomas Hampson who later led the crowd in a chorus of “Happy Birthday” put a lot of voice, more voice than heart, into “Eri tu” from Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, the great aria seeming in its matter an odd man out on such a program. Then came Renée Fleming first with the glorious Strauss song “Morgen,” beginning with the violin of concertmaster Alexander Barantschik establishing sublimity with the piece so intimate it seems almost sacrilegious to share it so publicly. Fleming captured this precious instant in song, interior glimpsed with the line, “Silently, we will look into each other's eyes.” But she imposes on the sensuousness of Strauss' writing for the soprano voice when playing the rapturous “Cäcile” principally for that and gliding over the text for sonority alone; she and her listeners lose the words. The voice is glorious and rang out on the impassioned line “You would come to me,” though it might have been in Flemish. By contrast, Audra MacDonald, the strong popular singer, producing crystalline diction and message, struck home with “Mister Snow” (from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel) and “A Little Bit in Love” from Bernstein's Wonderful Town.
Then came a set of songs Tilson Thomas had written quite a while ago, the quite charming “Not everyone thinks I'm beautiful,” then with Hampson singing, with more feeling than before, “We Two Boys Together Clinging” (to a Walt Whitman text), a gentle and lyric piece. Lisa Vroman, the celebrated singer in musicals, with MTT at the keyboard, gave an affectionate treatment to a piece Tilson Thomas had written for Leonard Bernstein's 70th birthday: “Thank you, Whoever is There.” It wasn't easy to get much of the words. Cabaret style pieces are not at all suited to a big hall like Davies. Von Stade sang his “Lucky Fools,” Fleming sang a fun, bluesy scat piece, MacDonald, his “New Year's Song” with Vroman and Von Stade pitching in on a refrain. Finally, all five singers joined, singing one verse each of the sentimental “Some Other Time” from Bernstein's On the Town. The listed capper was the orchestra's slam-bang go at the punchy dance “Malambo” from Ginastera's Estancia, but there was one last surprise. The sound of drums came from the back of the hall and a Brazilian troupe featuring six exotic and well-endowed woman dancers with feathery plumed headdresses danced down the aisles and continued performing on the floor in front of the stage. All repaired to the lobby for champagne and cake as the evening of fun came to an end.
(Robert P. Commanday, senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.)
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Michael Tilson Thomas
Audra McDonald