SWEAT, GUSH AND FIRE ALARMS : THE LENNIE BERNSTEIN SHOW COMES TO UCLA

Last Monday night in New York, Leonard Bernstein led--if that is the right verb--Zubin Mehta’s Philharmonic through an evening of music of L. Bernstein and P. Tchaikovsky.

Friday night in Los Angeles, the shrugging, jumping, sighing, soaring, gushing, crouching, rocking, rolling, bounding, bobbing, leaping, jiggling, stabbing, hunching, bumping, grinding and grunting maestro in excelsis repeated the same program with the same orchestra.

There were a few differences. The Fun City concert took place in Central Park. Attendance was free. The local version took place at Royce Hall, UCLA. The top ticket--minus celebratory dinner--cost $60.

And--oh, yes--there was a fire in Westwood. At least, we are told, some smoke arose in a boiler room.

A house alarm emitted an ominous drone between the second and third movements of a particularly pathetic “Pathetique,” sending the audience outdoors for another 20-minute intermission. Since the concert had begun at the odd but early hour of 7, the delay caused minimal consternation.

A managerial spokesperson refused to confirm any connection between the potential conflagration and the flamboyant performance by the would-be Loge on the podium.

Nevertheless, this was an undeniably, uniquely flamboyant performance.

Some conductors mellow with age. Bernstein, at 68, remains a frenetic combination of orbiting rocket, aerobics master, super-juggler, matinee idol, booming cannon, hysterical mime, heart-rending tragedien, bouncing ball, sky writer, riveting machine, mawkish sentimentalist and danseur ignoble .

To admire his art one either has to admire his peculiar brand of showpersonship or close one’s eyes.

If one closed one’s eyes Friday, one heard a great deal of well-mannered and well-manicured playing. Despite the dangers of an over-live acoustic and the blemishes of passing imprecision and imbalance, the New Yorkers projected heroism and eloquence, as the occasion demanded.

They also produced precious interpretive distortions, as the conductor demanded.

The festivities began with loud razzle-dazzle as Bernstein whipped through the Technicolored charms of the “Candide” overture. Then came the self-indulgence of Bernstein’s Serenade for Violin “after” Plato’s “Symposium.”

This exercise in conservative trivia, anno 1954, juxtaposes simple-song flights with academic counterpoint with movie-music bathos with Westside jazz and funk. Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, attended deftly to the solo passages.

The trite Tchaikovsky rituals, after the scheduled intermission, were bathed in torrents of blood, sweat and tears. Emoting above and beyond any call, Bernstein acted out a series of virtuosic charades.

He personally trudged the march of the second movement. He sighed and whimpered when pathos beckoned. He wiggled in moments of agitation as if he were auditioning for the next Twyla Tharp extravaganza. He lent new meaning to such a tired concept as overwrought .

As always, the audience adored the Lennie Show.

The protagonist looked picturesquely spent, ecstatic, euphoric, wrung out as he basked in the post-climactic applause. He also acted as if he and his symphonic cohorts had somehow succeeded in scaling at least three Mount Everests. The exquisite ardor of the moment could be expressed only in an ever-increasing orgy of hugs and kisses.

I left before the maestro embraced the stagehands.