Dance Reviews : Kirshbaum Soloist in Pasadena

An embarrassment of Quixotes is not necessarily a bad thing. Besides the balletic version of the Spanish classic, danced seven times (through Sunday afternoon) by ABT in Orange County, there was another local performance of Richard Strauss’ orchestral tone-poem on the same subject--after the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s, last week--by the Pasadena Symphony, Saturday night in Civic Auditorium.

Joining conductor Jorge Mester and the Pasadena ensemble, soloist Ralph Kirshbaum made the early reconsideration justifiable.

Kirshbaum is a resourceful cellist of many musical facets and dynamic skills. He plays with an emotional thrust backed up by obvious thoughtfulness. Apparently, he has the instrumental technique and cultural perspectives to make any work engaging; in “Don Quixote,” he re-examined the work thoroughly and deliberately, but with an ear for musical integrity.

This became a vivid, kaleidoscopically detailed performance, one that sang as often as it cogitated.

In it, Kirshbaum was seconded deeply not only by Mester and the aurally transparent ensemble, but by a cast of prime musical suspects: violist Janet Lakatos--playing with burnished tone, easy virtuosity and almost histrionic pertinence--concertmaster Paul Shure and the reliably brilliant principals of Pasadena Symphony’s winds.

Fewer pointed details and a lot less energy marked the preceding run-through of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, a decent and sometimes rewarding performance led by Mester with uncharacteristic understatement.

By way of overture, the music director offered a zippy, six-minute movement from a “Superman” suite by the Iowa-born Michael Daugherty, composed for the 50th anniversary of the comic strip.

Cute, cartoony and amusing from end to end, “Oh Lois” occupied its time resourcefully in what seemed a fair reading. The whole suite? Maybe not.