No holding back for a magnificent Upshaw

Much of the legacy of the 1960s is its soundtrack. The revolution didn’t occur. Marxism didn’t triumph over capitalism. Social change didn’t solve all our social problems. Still, the musical upheaval, in popular culture and so-called art music, was real and lasting. Walls came down, and so far we have shown better sense than to attempt to rebuild them.

The start of that decade and its ramifications in American music was the heart of an extraordinary program by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night. Dawn Upshaw (born in 1960), in magnificent voice, sang seven serious songs -- the four anxious ones in Lukas Foss’ “Time Cycle” (written in 1960) and the rivetingly emotional Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, written for her by Osvaldo Golijov (also born 1960). They were surrounded by Samuel Barber’s garish 1960 “Toccata Festiva” for organ and orchestra and Leonard Bernstein’s groundbreaking Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story,” premiered a year later.

A quote from Golijov in the program book was attention-getting: “Looking back to the past century, I see that what has survived is not the product of dogmas but the music of shameless opportunists, like Stravinsky, Strauss, Ravel, Berg, Armstrong, Ellington, Miles Davis, the Beatles, etc.” Perhaps, then, one lasting cultural legacy of the ‘60s will be that we learned what we can get away with. Shameless opportunism can, in the best of circumstances, stand for honesty.

Is it too corny to speak of the dawn of a new day? Upshaw, as is well known, is just back performing after undergoing chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. Friday she looked and sounded robust. And her tackling not one but two major song cycles (each more than 20 minutes) was certainly an I’m-still-here statement.

Upshaw is, in fact, more here than ever. She held nothing back, pouring forth what seemed like new reserves of vocal power, yet sounded fresh and rested all through the demanding music.

But first there was Barber’s Toccata, programmed, I suppose, to remind us that the ‘60s followed the ‘50s.

The score makes a big sound and lasts a long 15 minutes. Some of it sounds like Miklos Rozsa’s music for the 1959 epic film “Ben-Hur.” The British organist Simon Preston was the classy, self-effacing soloist, which meant he was all wrong. The Philharmonic’s associate conductor, Alexander Mickelthwate, who was a last-minute replace for an ailing Miguel Harth-Bedoya, provided correct accompaniment.

Foss’ “Time Cycle” is a world away from Barber’s. It begins with a clock ticking through W.H. Auden’s “We’re Late” and ends with Nietzsche’s “O Mensch! Gib Acht!” (Oh Man! Take Heed!) from “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” It was written first as a chamber work while Foss taught at UCLA and premiered in its orchestral version by Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic just as Bernstein was working on his symphonic version of “West Side Story.” The friends stole from each other, but very subtly.

Possibly Foss’ finest score, “Time Cycle” conveys a sense of dread in its text (another song turns to Kafka chronicling a mental breakdown) but also a sense of promise in its vivid new musical language, which dares give direct, psychologically unfiltered voice to these sentiments.

Golijov’s three songs pick up on the angst and the potential, and they are also taken from widely diverse sources. The first, with its intimations of klezmer and gypsy music, is an adaptation from his film score for Sally Potter’s “The Man Who Cried.” The second, “Lua Descolorida” (Colorless Moon), has a Spanish text by the poet Rosalia de Castro. The third is set to Emily Dickinson’s “How Slow the Wind.”

The beauty of these songs is too profound to describe in words, but probably few eyes in the hall were dry.

Upshaw’s performances of them are the stuff of legend. The songs will surely find their way into the standard repertory, but not right away. They so belong to Upshaw, and her singing of them has become so deeply internalized, that it will take time for other sopranos to find their own way in. Deutsche Grammophon will release a recording in July.

Mickelthwate, with obviously little time to internalize these works, did manage at least to get through the technical hurdles of “Time Cycle” and to capture much of Golijov’s glow.

In the “West Side Story” dances, he came into his own. They sounded nothing like Bernstein’s shamelessly over-the-top recording with our Philharmonic 25 years ago. In that glorious performance, “shameless” becomes synonymous with “shamanistic.” Mickelthwate was stricter, but he was full of rhythmic life.

Best of all, he brought out great details that demonstrated just how prescient Bernstein’s sophisticated adaptation of Broadway to the concert hall set the stage for the musically freewheeling ‘60s.

mark.swed@latimes.com