Sparklers, Duds at Fireworks Finale

Pyrotechnics stole the show Friday night at the Hollywood Bowl’s “Fireworks Finale: Party of the Century.” In a spectacular visual climax the sky was filled with some of the most imaginative sights and sounds of the season.

The evening started well, with a performance by the amazing young singer Charlotte Church. The promotion that has described her as having “the voice of an angel” may be a bit over the top, but there was no denying the extraordinary quality of her voice, especially her crystal-clear high notes and her surprisingly mature chest tones. Add to that Church’s beguiling comments and utterly charming courtesy as she left the stage.

Dancer-actress Ann Miller, making her Hollywood Bowl debut decades after she was a major MGM star, also offered a first-rate vocal performance perfectly connecting the summer Bowl season with the film music that has provided so much of the programming. Oddly, however, she chose as her finale Stephen Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here.” Appropriate for her as a performer, perhaps, it seemed strangely out of sync with her program of vintage MGM musical numbers.

But not nearly as out of sync as what followed in the program’s second half, with the appearances of singers Alan Cumming and Lea Delaria. It was, in fact, difficult to imagine why the Bowl had chosen to conclude its millennium-ending program with performances by two singers who, despite their modest talents, were hardly up to the level of a major appearance in a major venue.

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Nor were their sets helped by the fact that Cumming also chose a Sondheim tune--”Being Alive”--one whose depth and meaning was clearly beyond his current level of skill or that Delaria made an utterly inadequate attempt to do a chorus of jazz scat-singing without clearly having a sense of the song’s chord changes. A brief conducting appearance by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is best left uncommented upon.

Fortunately, the fireworks followed. And the tepid musical atmosphere associated with the evening’s second segment was instantly triggered to life with bursts of color and sound, and the invigorating playing of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. An anticipatory countdown to the year 2000 followed, with a group singing of “Auld Lang Syne.” It wasn’t exactly the “Party of the Century,” but it surely was the fireworks show of the year.