ITZHAK PERLMAN RETURNS TO BOWL

In recent years, Itzhak Perlman has visited Cahuenga Pass with a faithfulness that rivals the swallows’ return to Capistrano. Tuesday night with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the ever-popular violinist opened a three-performance stand at Hollywood Bowl and 13,196 fans clicked through the turnstiles.

The evening--doubtless coincidentally--also marked the return to full vigor of aerial intrusions and bottle-rolling. In at least one listener’s experience, those traditional nuisances have been remarkably abated this season, but Tuesday they came back with a vengeance.

Perlman, however, surmounted the distractions with typically radiant, big-toned ease. His vehicle was Saint-Saens’ Third Concerto, an attractive, wide-ranging compendium of violinistic display. Perlman poured out sweet, vibrato-drenched sounds and fiddled furiously, playing to the crowd without dropping a note or exceeding the inherent exaggerations.

His mission was abetted, if not exactly aided, by an electronic boost that would have let him compete with Armageddon on equal terms. That left Lawrence Foster and the Philharmonic toiling in the remote sonic background, a distance keenly felt in the slow movement, which relies largely on the accompaniment for rhythmic definition.

The Philharmonic was also making a return of sorts, after a week off while the Montreal Symphony occupied the Bowl. It would be nice to report that the home band equaled the high standards and aural excitement of the visitors-- which it is quite capable of doing--but reality was a more humdrum, disconnected affair.

Foster took an unsentimental approach to selections from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” ballet score, pervaded with a hurried, grind-it-out feeling. That robbed the Balcony Scene of all but the most superficial passion, and reduced Tybalt’s death march to the level of Sousa.

The orchestra’s effort had a degree of viable energy, but was frequently out-of-tune and harried. Upper woodwinds dominated the often thin, oddly balanced ensemble sound, although the first-desk players met the many solo opportunities with aplomb.

Similar problems beset the opening “Semiramide” Overture by Rossini. Transitions were abrupt and/or inaudible, but Foster put the big tunes well out front and the orchestra chased things along vigorously.