Bowl debutants can’t hide their feelings

Here is what was new under the Hollywood Bowl shell Thursday night: Chicks have hatched somewhere near the microphones. They expect to be heard, and they did an excellent job chirping the night away. But what a symbol for an evening of youthful exuberance!

A young conductor and a young pianist were making their Bowl debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Technically, Alexander Mickelthwate’s wasn’t a debut, since he helped accompany Gladys Knight and Chaka Khan the night before. But Thursday, he had more work, conducting the Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, with Olga Kern as soloist, and Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.”

As assistant conductor at the Philharmonic for the past season, Mickelthwate has led the New Music Group at a Green Umbrella concert, filled in at the last minute for an ailing conductor at Walt Disney Concert Hall and conducted various Philharmonic outreach programs around town. Thursday was nonetheless a coming of age of sorts for the 35-year-old from Germany.

And he seemed hardly able to wait. He bounded onstage waving his baton to signal the orchestra to stand for the National Anthem. He introduced both the concerto and the symphony with unrestrained enthusiasm, calling the Bowl the most magical summer venue in the world.

The Tchaikovsky, a piece that has probably resounded in the Bowl as often as any, had the advantage of a performance by a soloist and conductor who clearly wanted to bask in the light of the shell. We can’t know the meaning of Kern’s animated facial expressions or whether they were specifically for the camera, but she certainly looked pleased to be banging away at Tchaikovsky.

The Russian-born Kern has the kind of strong-armed technique and temperament that judges of piano competitions love, and she won the Van Cliburn four years ago. She also snagged an impressive Harmonia Mundi recording contract and has a full plate of major concert engagements. Still, I’m not sure I understand what all the fuss is about.

Her Tchaikovsky had its element of boldness. From the start, she announced her athletic authority and command. She’s mastered the concerto and was master of it, to the point of even showing Tchaikovsky a thing or two. But hers is a “gotcha” approach, with little room for sparkle, flexibility, play, imagination.

Mickelthwate conducted firmly, supportively and, to the degree he could while remaining under her thumb, supplely. The chicks cheeped. A couple of coyotes in the hills added their obbligato. All were welcome.

The “Symphonie Fantastique,” for its part, went well, although not until around halfway through the middle movement -- which Berlioz described, appropriately enough for the Bowl, as a scene in the country -- did it start to gel. Mickelthwate may not yet have the flair to bring a powerful personality to a piece under the Bowl’s trying circumstances of minimal rehearsal and maximal distraction, but he managed a tight, ingratiating performance. And, as best as one could tell, the orchestra enjoyed playing for him.

I suspect he would have really shined in a piece that was, at the last minute, canceled from the program: Roberto Sierra’s “Alegria.” Mickelthwate has a rhythmic crispness at his command that serves him especially well in contemporary music, and this recent piece by an exciting composer from Puerto Rico was described in the program notes as producing a “euphoric whirl.”

According to the orchestra’s president, Deborah Borda, “Alegria” was axed because it would have made the program too long. But the Bowl can use as much euphoric whirling as it can get. You can’t expect the birds to do everything.