Energy, polish from Prague

Some nights, music seems to belong exclusively to the young. Certainly, combining top-of-the-line skills with infectious enthusiasm can bring rare delight to even jaded audiences.

This happened Friday evening when the 41-member Prague Philharmonia, a youthful and highly accomplished Czech ensemble, gave its final concert of a first-ever, monthlong U.S. tour at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Bohumil Kulinsky, who is also music director of the National Theater Opera in Prague, conducted.

The program was standard -- Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” Overture, Dvorak’s Violin Concerto in A minor and Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony -- but it was performed with energy, fire, spontaneity and mostly high polish.

In time, these players, who seem mostly to be under 30, may hone their soft playing and accompanying levels of quietude.

Such levels come with middle age; for the nonce, this group’s dynamic brightness is hard to resist.

Beethoven’s dancey Seventh Symphony may seldom have seemed so compelling, so kinetically persuasive, so bumptious. Changing from formal attire in the first half into a white smock with black pants for the Seventh, Kulinsky, ever theatrical but perfectly controlled, led the work through its sober opening into a most insistent (almost pushy) allegretto, followed by a heaven-storming scherzo that seemed to be the main business of the piece.

The orchestra responded with playing of disciplined vigor and high spirits. Almost surprisingly, the finale topped what preceded it in boisterousness. Here was genuine Beethoven: impolite, brash, in your face.

Ivan Zenaty, another native of Prague who now teaches in Dresden, Germany, was the admirable, imperturbable soloist in the violin concerto. It is a handsome piece, particularly charming in its adagio and finale but with an opening movement that seems diffuse.

Nonetheless, the tight collaboration of soloist, conductor and orchestra became an object lesson in collegiality.

Immaculate in execution, filled with ardor and vitality, “The Marriage of Figaro” Overture opened the proceedings generously. As later in the evening, Kulinsky and his mighty little band delivered real pleasure.