Giving Its Regards to New York

The theme of this year’s Great American Concert at the Hollywood Bowl over the weekend was “New York, New York”--perhaps inevitable, given the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

There were only brief allusions Friday night to the terrible event itself, in conductor John Mauceri’s opening remarks, in a reprise of the short threnody “September 11, 2001” that Jerry Goldsmith dashed off for the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra last year, and in the appearance of the singing New York City Police Officer Daniel Rodriguez.

Rodriguez’s avocation as a concert singer has soared in the past year, the circumstances of which lent a mildly tasteless irony to his opening number, the self-congratulatory “This Is the Moment” from “Jekyll & Hyde.”

However, Rodriguez is clearly a gifted tenor, and his talent within the pops idiom is indisputable. He continued with “Shenandoah,” “The House I Live In,” and “Into the Fire” from “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” a song that has a much more sobering meaning in this context.

(By the way, is there some reason why Rodriguez’s songs were the only ones whose composers weren’t listed in the program? Frank Wildhorn, who wrote the music for “Jekyll” and “Pimpernel,” is clearly the Rodney Dangerfield of Broadway songsmiths.)

After intermission, a trio of musical-theater stars sang New York songs, as well as a couple of Broadway numbers that are only marginally Gothamish (“Being Alive,” for example--rumors are that it is possible to be alive outside New York City).

Judy Kaye’s rendition of Cole Porter’s relatively obscure “Down in the Depths on the Ninetieth Floor” was a gem, and Davis Gaines stylishly gave his regards to Broadway.

Rebecca Luker appeared to forget a lyric during “Autumn in New York,” and her voice generally didn’t seem quite at home in this material.

Mauceri delivered lighthearted comments on New York and L.A. with a flair that would fit the Leno or Letterman shows. The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra sounded bracing in the suite from “Ragtime,” the theme from “Laura” (with 90-year-old composer David Raksin taking a bow), the prelude from “North by Northwest,” the mambo from “West Side Story” and the John Williams “Liberty Fanfare” that accompanied the evening’s fireworks.