A rare but welcome visit
There was a podium on stage as usual Thursday at Walt Disney Concert Hall. But no one stood on it to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Instead, legendary Russian conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, 77, chose to stand in front of it, which is also business as usual for him.
Rozhdestvensky wants to be on the same level with the musicians and close to them, preferring modest instructions, minimal gestures and only a few inflections now and then. Occasionally, he just lets the musicians play while he basks in their sound.
He wants that sound to be big and rich, especially for an all-Russian program, so he reconfigured the orchestra, which he last led in 1990, in its old seating, with the violins on his left and the violas, cellos and basses on his right.
The original program had to be quickly revised after pianist Viktoria Postnikova, his wife since 1969, fell ill earlier this week. In place of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien” and the Polovtsian Dances from Borodin’s “Prince Igor” were hurriedly rehearsed. But that rarely showed.
The Philharmonic has played both works within the last six years, but not Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Festival,” which opened the program, nor Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3, which closed it. Those pieces, once staples of the repertory, haven’t been dusted off by the Philharmonic since 1995 and 1971, respectively. That didn’t show either.
Anyone expecting Old World, slush-pump indulgences was in for a surprise. Rozhdestvensky, who has headed the Bolshoi Theatre at three different periods of his career, has led dozens of world premieres, some dedicated to him, and he favors clean, modern playing.
He showed that Tchaikovsky could be muscular as well as emotional, and there were no neurasthenic undertones in either of the two works, even when they explored melancholic depths.
The conductor adroitly shifted between the meters and tempos in the various sections of “Capriccio Italien” and made the closing movement of the Suite No. 3, which choreographer George Balanchine used for his glorious 1947 ballet “Theme and Variations,” resound with imperial splendor.
The orchestra sounded sumptuous in both pieces and also in Borodin’s exotic “Polovtsian Dances,” although occasionally Rozhdestvensky misjudged the lively Disney Hall acoustic and pushed the brass too hard.
Only Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Festival” fell short of expectations. The orchestra’s sound was again rich and full, both at the climaxes and in the opening quotations from Russian Orthodox Church services. But the piece didn’t sweep forward. Even the final intoxicating celebration of the Resurrection sounded heavy and flat-footed.
The program offered opportunities for important solos to musicians including concertmaster Martin Chalifour, flutist Catherine Ransom Karoly, oboists Ariana Ghez and Marion Arthur Kuszyk, clarinetist Lorin Levee and trumpeter James Wilt.
--
--
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A.
When: 8 tonight
Price: $40 to $142
Contact: (323) 850-2000 or
www.laphil.com
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
