Bowl’s Great American Concert Strikes Familiar but Apt Chord

Leonard Bernstein’s 80th birthday would be Tuesday and George Gershwin’s 100th comes a month later, though programmers for the Hollywood Bowl never need special urging to schedule music by those two masters. This summer’s edition of the Great American Concert, on Friday and Saturday--with the second performance telecast live on KCOP-TV Channel 13--found John Mauceri, soloists Sylvia McNair and Tracey Welborn, and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in familiar but engaging Gershwin and Bernstein grooves.

McNair is a stylistically omnivorous soprano, justly admired in a wide range of repertory. Heard Friday, her Gershwin set benefited from musical sass and textual point, and she floated a rapt and radiant “Somewhere” in the “West Side Story” excerpts.

Welborn sounded pallid at first in his Bowl debut and not much helped by Mauceri’s hard-pushed accompaniment in Gershwin’s “A Foggy Day.” The American tenor warmed up quickly, however, in voice and spirit, and he blossomed operatically in Bernstein’s “Maria.”

The two singers combined handsomely in duets, particularly in the giddy raptures of “Tonight.” Occasional pressing aside, Mauceri and the Bowl Orchestra provided steady support, and the sound system kept the voices clear and up front while allowing instrumental detailing to come through.

On their own, Mauceri and the band offered Gershwin and Bernstein overtures and dances in bright, high-energy readings. Inevitably perhaps, the “West Side Story” mambo stole the musical show, seductive and sinister in turn and dazzling in its rhythmic force. Gershwin’s “Strike Up the Band” disappeared under the imposing fireworks barrage.

When the demanded encores--”In the Mood” and music from the “Saving Private Ryan” trailer--ran out, Mauceri reprised the galvanic mambo.