Communal vote of confidence

Something is stirring in St. Louis.

Earlier this year, the St. Louis Symphony acted like the least contented orchestra in the land. Players said terrible things about management. Management spoke of players as if they were spoiled children needing a spanking, not competitive wages and benefits that could easily bankrupt an institution on the edge. Concerts were canceled. A music director-designate whom everyone seemed to love (and the orchestra seemed doomed to lose, if things got any worse) was forced to stand by, helplessly, in the wings.

Fences are not yet entirely mended. Reluctantly, the players accepted a substandard pay package, and they have hardly rescinded their vote of no confidence in the orchestra’s president.

But Friday night, when David Robertson stood -- and hopped and exulted -- in front of this orchestra in Powell Symphony Hall for his first concert as its now-official music director, happier-looking musicians could not have been imagined. Both the orchestra and its audience gave him an overwhelming vote of confidence, the equal of which you would have to travel far and wide to find.

It was a great concert, stimulating and exhilarating, the kind one never forgets.

This is what Robertson -- 47, born in Santa Monica and former music director of the Orchestre National de Lyon and the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris -- did Friday night:

An hour before curtain, he delivered the traditional pre-concert talk himself. He did so with originality, sophistication, a light touch and enthusiastic friendliness. He also happens to be an instinctive comedian, although he tries to keep his more outrageous side in check.

For the concert, he walked -- make that bounded, like a kid who couldn’t contain himself -- onstage to lead a national anthem that was not just rousing but, rarest of all in these politically divisive days, genuinely communal. We were, at least in music and for that moment, one.

The evening was not a gala. The audience was not fancy. Ticket prices were not elevated. As with every show, the orchestra, in an extraordinary gesture, gave away 50 seats on a first-come, first-served basis. A red carpet, some free champagne that quickly ran out and a brief brass fanfare in the lobby were all that distinguished this from any other night. Oh, and one more thing: Robertson had told the women in the orchestra to wear what they liked, and what many liked were brightly colored formal gowns that helped create a festive atmosphere.

The program was celebratory but in a mind-boggling way. It is a safe bet that the vast majority of the audience did not know any of the music on the radically diverse program.

What in the world could Stravinsky’s version of Bach’s Chorale Variations on “Vom Himmel Hoch,” a couple of unusual Mozart vocal numbers, “Lonely Child” by Claude Vivier (an obscure French Canadian who died in his 30s in 1983) and John Adams’ “Harmonielehre” possibly have in common? Robertson spoke about how each celebrated a kind of rebirth of melody. Mozart and Vivier both died young and had lonely childhoods.

I know that I was not the only one caught up, from first note to last, in this strange, enchanting concert. The hall, a converted 1925 movie palace with fine acoustics, was filled with nothing but engaged, evidently trusting listeners and animated responders.

The stagehands worked hard in the first half. Every piece had a different configuration. Stravinsky’s Bach arrangement utilized a chamber ensemble and the St. Louis Symphony Chorus. Stravinsky threw acid on Bach and watched the reaction. Robertson, who has exceptionally fast reactions and a startling rhythmic acuity, got the players to sizzle all around the chorale melody, which the chorus sang with soul.

Dawn Upshaw was the soloist in the two Mozart numbers and the Vivier. Stravinskian dazzle miraculously turned to Mozartean radiance in the brief “Laudate Dominum” from “Vesperae Solennes de Confessore.” That was followed by a late, highly dramatic concert aria, “Bella Mia Fiamma.” Upshaw doesn’t sing Mozart as much as she used to, when she was a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera. It’s the Met’s loss. In these two pieces, she went from blessed spirit to anguished lover with startling immediacy.

She also sounded a kindred spirit with Robertson in her ability to live in each note she sings. And both made Vivier’s “Lonely Child” a revelation. A 15-minute piece, it conveys through a partly French and partly made-up text, and through music of otherworldly stillness and luminosity, a child’s wistful fairy-tale escape from grim reality.

After intermission came Adams’ first large-scale orchestral masterpiece, “Harmonielehre,” written 20 years ago. Robertson made the score leap off the page and stage. Part of his excitement is that he can be very proper, with a precise stick technique one minute, and manically expressive the next.

In conducting the big chords that opened “Harmonielehre,” he literally leaped for joy. But he also found deep, probing expression in Adams’ slow, dark melodies. In the last movement, with its bright colors and Minimalist repetitions, he captured the world of fairy-tale imagination all over again, but now it was no longer lonely. It sounded Ravelian. Beautiful. Happy. Content.

This was the perfect message for the orchestra and the community. And it was a fairy tale that was no fluke.

Robertson means to make this orchestra matter. There are 11 new players this season, many quite young, as if confirming the veterans’ complaints that the new contract would make it difficult to attract seasoned applicants.

But Friday’s playing was superb and utterly responsive.

Robertson has scheduled a whole season of similarly unusual and meaningful programs with lots of engaging and important new music, although the marketing department doesn’t appear to trust him yet. It has supplied cornball titles and copy for each arresting program.

Nor did the management inspire confidence, as it seemed to go out of its way not to attract national attention for this opening concert.

But now is the time to stop worrying and simply follow Robertson’s lead, especially as he has begun reaching out to the community at large. His next concert, for instance, will be a jazz program on Wednesday with the illustrious saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

He also insisted that the orchestra play the opening night program for high school and college students the evening before, even if that broke the budget. All tickets were $10. The kids came and sat enthralled.

Afterward, he told them that they would always be welcome at Powell Hall, that he wanted them to feel it was their home.

“And we want to know what you think,” he said. “We are not your parents.”