WESTSIDE / VALLEY : Performances at Bowl to Set Stage for a Mother and Son Reunion

Doctor Zhivago had nothing on Bella Davidovich and Dmitry Sitkovetsky.

For years--since she followed him out of the Soviet Union in 1978--mother and son, pianist and violinist, respectively, have been chasing around the globe, just missing each other in some cases and being a continent apart in others.

But when they arrive at Hollywood Bowl for back-to-back performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (he on Aug. 31 and she on Sept. 2) they plan to enjoy a major family reunion.

“It’s the rarest thing for us to be in the same place at the same time,” says Sitkovetsky by phone from Montpellier, France. “But this pattern of separation is what I grew up with, so it seems natural enough.”

Sitkovetsky’s parents were concertizing musicians until tragedy struck. His father, Julian, who died of cancer at 32 when “Dima” was 3 1/2, had earned prestige as a violinist.

“And my mother, grieving over his death, plunged even deeper into her career,” he explains. “As a result, I was left with relatives and nannies--which turned out . . . to be a blessing in disguise.

“You see, it meant that I escaped having a Jewish backstage mother.

“But, in all seriousness, the most important event in my life was my father’s death. It overshot any other concerns and left me with a mission: to carry out what he didn’t live long enough to finish.”

By age 22, when he immigrated to the United States to study at Juilliard, there was no longer the specter of his father “and I reveled in what only the West could offer at the time--personal and artistic freedom.

“But I also feared not ever seeing my mother again. The Soviets canceled her tours out of the country immediately following my exit. I think they finally gave her permission to leave, though, because they knew I’d raise hell here if they didn’t.”

Davidovich, speaking through a translator from her New York home in Kew Gardens, puts the matter on a different level.

“My entire life changed when Dima left Russia,” she says. “There was no question but that I would follow him--what mother could accept being cut off permanently from her child?

“But if I thought I would be living in the same country with my son I was wrong.”

For one thing, Sitkovetsky, 38, is on the move--even more so than his 65-year-old mother. In addition to his violinist dates, he is founder of music festivals in Finland and Seattle (where Davidovich just played) and conducts his 20-member ensemble, the New European Strings.

He has also made a home--with his wife, American soprano Susan Roberts, and young daughter--in London.

Destiny separates certain sons from their mothers. And Davidovich, who brought her mother and sister from the Soviet Union, feels “a keen absence of male support” in the family.

Which leaves music as the sole area free of unrequited longing between them.

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Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Bella Davidovich, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, perform at 8:30 p.m. Aug. 31 and Sept. 2, respectively, at Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. Tickets $1 to $63. Call (213) 480-3232.