MUSIC REVIEW : Cellists Open Towers Gala in San Diego

It was one of those fancy nights.

The ladies modeled furs and feathers. The gentlemen wore their best penguin suits. Expensive perfumes clashed in the thick air of the foyer. Flashbulbs popped in giddy counterpoint. Generous benefactors offered modest speeches.

The place was festooned with blossoms. The crowd did a lot of conspicuous wining and dining, even dancing. And--oh, yes--in the midst of the fabulous fuss, the celebrants could find a concert, and a rather interesting one at that.

The average ticket for the whole wild and vicissitudinous affair cost $250. Obviously, this wasn’t just another op’nin’, another show.

This was a gala event. Make that a capital G. It marked the official inauguration of Symphony Towers, a shiny, $143-million “mixed-use development” that has risen above--and promises to help support--San Diego’s lavish, proudly reconstructed, quasi-neo-Deco-astrokitsch Symphony Hall.

The symphonic portion of the gala enlisted a rather strange cast of characters. On the stage, stationed within the improvised acoustic shell, sat the San Diego Symphony, risen after a fashion from the fiscal ashes of yesteryear. The central spaces were shared by three conductors (one of whom didn’t conduct), two cellists (who never played at the same time) and two violists (one of whom never fiddled).

It sometimes was difficult, under the circumstances, to tell the plays and players, even with a program. The management provided a glossy, 28-page, ad- and congratulation-laden souvenir booklet that offered no musical annotation, incomplete biographical data, no identification of one of the soloists, no movement headings and no orchestra roster.

Still, there were compensations. The throat-clearing exercises respected tasteful brevity. The musical menu turned out to be mercifully intermissionless. And both of the principal attractions--Lynn Harrell and Mstislav Rostropovich--delivered the goods.

The introductory flourishes of Copland’s snazzy, all-purpose “Fanfare for the Common Man” were dispatched by the resident brass under a guest: Heiichiro Ohyama. He normally serves as assistant conductor and principal violist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but, for reasons unknown, the San Diegans chose to keep that a secret.

Ohyama also presided over Richard Strauss’ “Don Quixote.” He had attended to the viola chores of Sancho Panza in the same work at Hollywood Bowl only two days earlier. On Saturday, he wielded the baton while Yun-Jie Liu, first violist of the San Diego Symphony, served deftly and self-effacingly as the Man of La Mancha’s Man Friday.

Responding to Ohyama’s efficient if rather bland urgings, the orchestra sounded alert if a bit thin. The marvelous mutterings, sputterings and soulful yearnings of the title role were entrusted here, as at Cahuenga Pass, to Harrell, who has been functioning as music adviser to the San Diego Symphony in the absence of a music director.

On this occasion, he proved once again that he is as much a poet as a cellist. This was a thinking-man’s Strauss, sensitively conceived and eloquently executed.

For the E-flat Cello Concerto of Shostakovich, Harrell moved to the podium and provided bright, brisk, attentive accompaniment for Rostropovich’s star turn. Although the orchestral fabric again tended toward the anemic, it offset the soloist’s lean tone and expressive urgency effectively.

Rostropovich may not command the flying, steely fingers of yore. A double professional life can take a certain toll in matters of technique. Nevertheless, he still musters macabre agitation for the opening passages, mournful lyricism for the slow movement, gnarled bravura for the mighty cadenza and elegant frenzy for the finale.

He still knows the secrets of illumination. This was the real thing.