A Stylish, Fresh ‘Latin Spectacular’

Making his Hollywood Bowl debut, Miguel Harth-Bedoya hosted the Bowl’s “Latin Spectacular” on Friday as coolly as if he had been doing it for years. Speaking in a relaxed way to the large audience, he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic with an easy but firm authority, bringing an adamantly unhackneyed program to these performances.

On the first of the two-evening engagement, the recently promoted Philharmonic associate conductor seemed to do everything right. With tenor Fernando de la Mora (from Mexico) and bandoneon virtuoso Horacio Romo (from Argentina) as the energy-raising, audience-pleasing soloists, Harth-Bedoya needed only to accompany with sensitivity and keep the orchestra stylish and lively. He did both, and with charm and infectiousness.

This was a Pan-American program including songs and pieces seldom heard at the Bowl. The conductor’s brief introductions, conversational banter with the audience and musical pacing of each item resulted in a most engaging entertainment. The orchestral portions, including Marquez’s “Danzon” No. 2, and arrangements of “Toro Mata,” “Cachita” and “El Cumbanchero,” familiar to many, made listeners happy. The orchestra played up to the level of passion and commitment that pops evenings demand but do not always receive.

Soloist Romo, unflappable in this 18,000-capacity venue, gave Astor Piazzolla’s Bandoneon Concerto a touching and technically immaculate performance, assisted gamely by the Philharmonic. He returned after intermission to play “La Cumparsita” alongside the considerable visual distractions of two charismatic dancers, the tango duo of Sandor and Monique.

Mora scored heavily with the friendly, but not rowdy--as some Friday night crowds can be--audience. His soft-grained and sometimes crooning tenor seemed more appropriate to this repertory than to the operatic excerpts he had sung at the Bowl on Tuesday. In any case, he excited his listeners most effectively with the final songs by Maria Grever, “Te quiero dijiste” and “Jurame.”

Making the event live up to its promise as spectacular, Harth-Bedoya closed with a revival of “Tico Tico”--we never knew it was written in 1917 by the Argentine composer Zequinha de Abreu--accompanied by a colorful and often on-the-beat fireworks display.