Music Reviews : Araiza, Chavez Youth Symphony at Pavilion

Mexican tenor Francisco Araiza promised extra luster to the Carlos Chavez Youth Orchestra of Mexico City in its U.S. debut Friday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Justly admired for his lyric work in Mozart and the bel-canto repertory, Araiza, who has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, has for several years now pushed into heavier dramatic challenges, as he did on this occasion, and the shift, unfortunately, has taken its toll.

Araiza sang “Celeste Aida” from Verdi’s “Aida,” the Flower Song from Bizet’s “Carmen” and “Nessum dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot.” Though still lustrous in mid-range, his once-flexible instrument showed signs of unsteadiness under pressure and narrowing in the heights. He eschewed the final pianissimo in the Flower Song and generally gave bland textual interpretations. But he sang the high notes honestly and clearly, if without ideal clarion heft.

Founding music director Fernando Lozano made some odd stylistic choices by prefacing the excerpts with the Overture to Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino,” Prelude to “Carmen” and the Intermezzo from Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut,” respectively. Even though the composers are the same, the outer works date from different stylistic periods.

Still, Lozano conducted with committed, no-nonsense involvement, and the orchestra, formed in 1990, proved an alert, talented and disciplined ensemble, playing with zest and well-nourished sound, although lacking individuality of phrasing in prominent solos.

Silvestre Revueltas’ concert suite from his 1935 film score for Paul Strand’s “Redes” raised spontaneous (and premature) applause for its dynamic, inventive incorporation of folk and social dance idioms, but otherwise it succumbed to the languors and redundancies undoubtedly imposed by a visual rather than a musical logic.

Carlos Prieto, as the recipient of the composer’s dedication, presumably made a definitive soloist in Federico Ibarra’s Cello Concerto, an imaginative, episodic, mildly modernistic work in which the soloist and orchestra usually explore contrasting material. Lozano and the orchestra accompanied sensitively.

Encores elicited by the large but not capacity audience included one of the symphonic dances from Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” and one of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances.