Trial by Fireworks

Lots of military instruments and “no fiddles” was what George II wanted from Handel when he asked for some music to accompany a large public display of fireworks in 1749, celebrating the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The composer delivered quite successfully, but the fireworks were a flop, setting aflame a specially constructed victory temple and stampeding the crowd into a fatal panic.

The traditional pairing of the “Music for the Royal Fireworks” and pyrotechnics closing the subscription season at the Hollywood Bowl has no tragedy in its history, but it is a trial by fire of sorts for a live television broadcast. KCOP has had a crew there since 1987, however, and every year its program has received a local Emmy nomination. This year the program also will be broadcast nationwide a week later on the A&E; cable channel.

Harry Kooperstein, a veteran trumpeter and Dixieland jazz fan, has directed all of the specials--and won three Emmys for his efforts. A few weeks before the sixth of the annual broadcasts, Kooperstein talked to classical music writer John Henken about his work translating the concert sights and sounds into live video.

Where do you start when you are preparing for a show like this?

First I find out what the material is. The Philharmonic generally will send me an audiotape of the music the way it’s going to be played. I listen to it in the car, at home. I’m also a professional musician, so I get it all in my head. I have a whole pile of notes the night of the broadcast, but the majority of the time I’ll look down at the end of the broadcast and find I haven’t even opened the folder.

I think for a director doing a show like this, if he didn’t have a musical background it would be very difficult. I mean, he could get some shots and some nice lighting, but as far as directing music I think it takes a special individual who knows music. I majored in music at Ohio State and played professionally.

The Philharmonic also supplies me with a score reader. It’s like a security blanket. If I say, “Oboe next?” she’ll say “right” or “there’s a pretty solo section coming up.” When it comes to the show, it’s just me and the score reader, and the technical director, John Tweden, who is also musical and has done the show with me every year.

Do you try to match the rhythm of the camerawork and the dynamics of the production to the musical impulses?

It’s funny. I feel it, I know it, and the crew is all right there with me, especially the technical director. They feel it, too, and there’s no problem, between a cut or a dissolve, depending on the rhythm of the music.

Was this show an idea that met with some resistance at first?

It was, mainly because at the Hollywood Bowl they had never done a complete live broadcast of an L.A. Philharmonic concert.

So it was almost like our side and the Philharmonic getting to know one another the first year. The first concert went off without a hitch, and this sort of cemented relationships, because between our people and the Philharmonic people there weren’t any major problems, as far as personality problems, or their union/our union when all of a sudden a truck full of cameras pulled up. Everybody cooperated, and then when we really pulled it off, it was like, “Well, we’re looking forward to doing it again.”

Has it gotten at least technically routine?

I feel it’s never routine. Any time you think it’s going to be routine, that’s when something happens.

But it’s gotten better. The first three years we had a small truck, utilizing CCD cameras--CCD meaning chip cameras, not tube cameras, which would handle available light and fireworks a lot better than most tube cameras because you don’t get the lag and beam problems.

The last two years we’ve used VTE’s large van with studio cameras, and it’s been incredible, it really has. So I’d say, each year technically, it’s gotten better.

We’ve never really had a major problem. Three years ago, about three-quarters of the way through the concert it poured. We were in the middle of Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet,” and the stage manager said, “It’s coming down!” We lost four out of eight cameras for approximately two minutes. Nobody panicked. Looking at the tape itself, you saw maybe one or two slight glitches, but other than that technically you wouldn’t have known it. At the end of the concert, the chief engineer said, “You don’t know how close you came to losing everything.”

Rain might not be a common problem, but what do you do about fog or wind, which holds the smoke from the fireworks inside the Bowl?

Friday night (when KCOP does a real-time run through) and Saturday night are the same, so Friday night actually is the only chance the cameras and crews have for what I call “getting their legs.” It’s not really a rehearsal because you can’t stop and reposition, it’s the concert.

Last year, for some reason there was a technical problem with the fireworks, and in the middle of the (Friday) concert they started going off. At the time of the finale, because there was fog and wind, it obliterated everything--I mean, you couldn’t see diddly. I was in the truck, and I couldn’t see anything, the smoke just covered the whole bowl.

Saturday afternoon the fireworks people said, “You know, it’s supposed to be the same weather. We can’t guarantee anything.” So we didn’t know what was going to happen, but they were gorgeous.

You can’t move a camera back to get above smoke, or anything?

The cameras are static, except a ped-camera behind the percussion section. The rest are in certain areas because we cannot block even one patron. So as many times as I’ve wanted to put up a crane or a boom, when Earnest (Fleischmann, managing director of the Philharmonic) hears that he says, “You’ve done fine all these years without it.”

There are obviously many layers to this experience. You’re not just giving a video transcription of a concert?

Oh, definitely not. I call it a “conductor’s-eye view,” which many people never get a chance to see. We try to show as much of the orchestra and make it look as pleasant as possible, yet cover it correctly musically.

“Live from the Hollywood Bowl” airs Saturday at 8:30 p.m. on KCOP and Sept. 15 at 6 and 10 p.m. on A&E.;