Pop : A Lightweight Western Night at Bowl

Ever wonder just how lightweight a summer pops performance can get?

The Los Angeles Philharmonic program Friday night at the Hollywood Bowl was an object lesson.

Let’s accept the fact that the orchestra members, as well as the men of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, were garbed in a motley collection of Levis, plaid jackets, Frye boots and Stetsons. It was, after all, a concert with the vaguely generic theme of Western music.

It may be a bit of a stretch, but let’s also accept the presence of Tom Wopat--best known as Luke Duke in the television series “Dukes of Hazard”--as the featured singer.

The summer Bowl season is long, and many soloists, with and without celebrity visibility, are required.

The results, however, once assembled into a program in which the only remotely provocative elements were a few selections from Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo,” were ephemeral enough to almost float up to the night sky. (Where they undoubtedly would have collided with a swarm of intruding aircraft.)

Conductor Erich Kunzel was amiable and pleasant, trying hard to show how folksy he could be. But the Philharmonic players--despite occasional programmatic shouts of “yee-haw!”--did little more than sleepwalk their way through music that made scant demands on their skills.

To his credit, Wopat sang respectably enough, especially during a medley of such classics as “Mule Train” and “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

Even so, the only true high voltage of the evening came when the Philharmonic tore into the multiple closing climaxes of the “William Tell Overture” and the fireworks took center stage.