MUSIC REVIEW : PACIFIC SYMPHONY PLAYS ‘BROADWAY BERNSTEIN’

For more than 40 years, Leonard Bernstein has been busy musically being all things to all audiences. In many ways, he is the prototypical American musician. If not the brightest and the best, he is probably the brashest and the most popular.

With a Bernstein Festival, the Pacific Symphony reminds us that behind the glitzy public persona is a composer of considerable accomplishment. Saturday night in Costa Mesa at the Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Hall, the emphasis was on Lenny the showman, the classical composer who was hip to the beat.

“Bernstein on Broadway” was something of a misnomer, but certainly redolent of neon lights and fast times uptown. John Cage once remarked about his emotional response to music that he didn’t mind being moved, but hated being pushed. Bernstein’s show music puts its arm around your shoulder, and dances off down the street with you.

At least when played by the Pacific Symphony under the direction of Lukas Foss. The symphonic dances from “West Side Story” emerged by turn big and blustery, sly and insinuating, blue and sentimental. The sound was direct and powerful, balances sure, and the crackling rhythmic drive irresistible.

If only in the finale the tempo had been a little slower, the dynamics a little softer, the string sound more plush. For anyone who knows the show, the dances are also a tone poem. Foss & Co. turned understated and prosaic at the end, after generating tremendous musical excitement and emotional tension.

Foss’ longstanding association with Bernstein includes leading the first performance of the dances 25 years ago. In Broadway terms, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” might best describe his style Saturday. But though Foss spent most of the evening bouncing on his toes, it seemed perfectly natural and therefore not distracting.

The orchestra certainly found Foss’ baton-less jitterbugging eminently comprehensible. Keyed by a strong rhythm section, the Pacific Symphony proved remarkably supple and responsive to Foss’ demands for nuance as well as energy.

The principal soloist for the evening was soprano Evelyn de la Rosa. She sang “I Feel Pretty” with two voices--a clear conversational one for the verses, and a fuller operatic one for the upper range. She mimed the action prettily, and sounded appropriately innocent.

The rapt exaltation of “A Simple Song” from Bernstein’s “Mass” proved more difficult for de la Rosa to sustain, particularly with a leaden accompaniment. She bounced charmingly in the cabaletta of “Glitter and Be Gay” from “Candide,” though the main verses found her more pouting than pensive.

Principal clarinetist James Kanter tootled rather meekly in the “Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.” Suites from the ballet “Fancy Free” and the film “On the Waterfront,” urgently played, completed the printed program.

There were defections from the nearly full house at intermission, and others returned late. But Foss rewarded the enduring faithful with a sassy, slightly breathless account of the “Candide” overture in encore.

The Bernstein Festival ends this evening with a chamber music program at the South Coast Repertory Theater.