Something New Under the Sun : Tourism: Thousands of summer visitors experience the Hollywood Bowl each week in a way that few local residents know. They do it in the daytime, and for free.

Swords were flashing. Muskets were firing. The Union Jack was flying.

Red-coated British soldiers were advancing to the cadence of a steady drumbeat as the sound of a brass bugle echoed from the hillside. A squad of French soldiers was scattering in retreat.

“Very good!” exclaimed Kenneth Measures of Leicester, England. “Excellent! Brilliant!”

The retired English bobby was starting a short Los Angeles holiday with his wife when he ambled into the middle of the Battle of Vitoria one recent morning at the Hollywood Bowl.

On the stage below, the Duke of Wellington was conquering a contingent of French in a prelude to the defeat of Napoleon.

June 21, 1813, had been a glorious day for the British. And this day was starting out on a glorious note for two British tourists.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra was rehearsing with costumed actors for an evening concert of Beethoven music. The finale would be “Wellington’s Victory--The Battle Symphony,” accompanied by sword fights and fireworks.

The bowl was near the top of the Measures’ Southern California itinerary, along with Disneyland, Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Rodeo Drive shopping district. The couple was being treated to a preview of the concert and battle re-enactment hours before a paying crowd of 18,000 would arrive.

“Of course we’ve heard of the Hollywood Bowl,” Jenny Measures said. “We English are far more informed about America than you are about England.”

Thousands of summer tourists experience the Hollywood Bowl each week in a way that few local residents know. They do it in the daytime. And for free.

Musicians rehearse between 9:30 a.m. and noon the day of each performance. Visitors are welcomed, even to front-row box seats if they make advance arrangements.

“We’re delighted to have the tourists,” said Wayne Shilkret, general manager of the bowl. “Most of the world has heard about the Hollywood Bowl. Many of them buy tickets and come back for a performance.”

But some are surprised to find the outdoor performance area tucked in a tiny valley just steps from the Hollywood Freeway.

“I’d never heard of this place,” said Tony Sokkar, a bartender from Sydney, Australia, who stopped for 20 minutes with a busload of other tourists.

Said Vic Kolenda, a restaurant owner from Melbourne, Australia: “When the driver said we were going to the Hollywood Bowl, I thought it was going to be a dome or something.”

Tour guide Al Davido said he is surprised when visitors are unfamiliar with the bowl.

“I tell them that Elton John has played here and they’re interested,” Davido said. “Most of the young people on the bus are impressed when they walk inside. But some of the older ones just get out, light a cigarette and hit the restrooms.”

Some tour guides embellish upon the lore of the bowl, which has been used for concerts since 1920. Its distinctive shell-like stage was constructed in 1929.

“They’ll say that Madonna always sits over there in that box or that Wilt Chamberlain lives in that big house up there on the hill and uses a helicopter to get to basketball games,” said rehearsal attendant Ian Lasky, 19, of Burbank.

Neither is true, said Lasky, one of 515 special workers hired by the bowl during the summer concert season to assist 40 year-round employees.

Bowl operations manager Pat Moore said “rehearsal guards” spend their mornings shushing tourists who don’t realize that their voices can be heard on stage just as easily as the banter between musicians and conductors can be heard on the hillside.

Some Hollywood Bowl myths have become legend, said Moore, who has worked there for 40 seasons.

“About every 10 years or so it comes up that there is bandit gold from the Cahuenga Pass buried under here. Every 10 years, we’ll find people coming in with metal detectors. But they never find anything,” he said.

Bob Mack, a retired police detective from Boston, found the bowl larger than he expected when he visited it this week. “It’s even bigger than the Boston Gardens. The seating here is unreal,” Mack said.

But Gloria Schum, a visitor from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., found it different than expected. “It looks bigger on TV,” the homemaker said.

Chantal Gelmi,, a teacher from Paris, was disappointed when she arrived 10 minutes after the rehearsal ended. “I’m not lucky. There’s no music today,” she said.

She was lucky the re-enactment of the Battle of Vitoria was over, however.