MUSIC REVIEW : Frederica von Stade Makes Bowl Debut With Rodgers Concert

One of the burgeoning crowd of crossover divas, American mezzo Frederica von Stade made her Hollywood Bowl debut in weekend concerts devoted to the music of Richard Rodgers.

Bound by the scores and the microphone, she made no show-bizzy efforts to sell a dozen songs with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. Instead, Stade offered sincere sentiment, a glimmer of wit, and sensitive, rich and generous singing--too generous in vibrato.

This expressive simplicity and vocal solidity served Rodgers’ classics well, and reminded us how much is lost in the brassy sung-speech style currently in vogue for show music. Stade went beyond generalized sweetness in her post-intermission sets, with the particularly luminous “Spring Is Here” and “Quiet Night,” and a sassy “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.”

Veteran show maestro John McGlinn made his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at these concerts. He favored direct-drive brio over responsive phrasing in accompanying Stade, and the original arrangements in all works rather than the glitzy updating common to many pops concerts.

McGlinn also led brisk, evenly balanced accounts of the “Babes in Arms” and “On Your Toes” overtures, and the Waltz from “Carousel.” The Los Angeles Master Chorale provided a pastel backdrop, limited in musical contributions to the Waltz in a suite from “Cinderella” and backup duties in Stade’s final set.

The curiously passive crowd of 10,072 Friday didn’t muster enough applause for a single bow at intermission, and clapped enough for only one at the end--no encore.