Triumphant night of the Russians

Asked at a Los Angeles Opera pre-performance lecture Saturday afternoon whether he preferred conducting opera or orchestral music, company music director James Conlon said he could not conceive of doing just one or the other. He loved doing both.

He proved the point by leading splendid performances of Viktor Ullmann’s “The Broken Jug” and Alexander Zemlinsky’s “The Dwarf” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the afternoon. Then, with only a few hours’ break, he went across the street to Walt Disney Concert Hall to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an equally impressive Russian program Saturday night.

Sunday was no day of rest. Conlon was scheduled to repeat the Philharmonic concert in the afternoon, then go back to the pavilion to conduct Verdi’s “Otello” in the evening.

Did we forget to mention that he led the Philharmonic in a “Casual Friday” concert the night before the operas?

Saturday evening’s Philharmonic program consisted of two short, obscure Mussorgsky pieces, which Conlon conducted from memory; Shostakovich’s powerful Violin Concerto No. 1, with Vadim Repin as the remarkable soloist, and Tchaikovsky’s mighty Fifth Symphony, which Conlon also led from memory.

Shostakovich’s concerto is one of his greatest scores, portraying a Dostoevskian -- or better, a totalitarian -- world of devastation, pain, savagery and sarcasm. The third movement Passacaglia echoes the stunning deportation scene in the composer’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and long lingers in the mind.

Repin was an introspective witness traversing the dead landscape of the first movement Nocturne and the solemnity of the Passacaglia. He was all dazzling fire in the manic Scherzo, with its sudden bursts of klezmer music. He was just as expressive and virtuosic in the marathon cadenza that links the Passacaglia to the final crazed Burlesca and in that wild movement itself.

Conlon and the orchestra provided crisp, clean, vigorous and engaged accompaniment. Principal bassoonist Shawn Mouser’s solo added to the poignant gloom of the opening of the Passacaglia.

After intermission, Conlon led a magisterial performance of Tchaikovsky’s symphony, avoiding droopy introspection and letting the triumphant brass ring.

The orchestra was brilliantly responsive. The strings played with suave, balanced airiness in the third movement Valse, and the whole orchestra brought both precision and weight to the titanic struggles of the final movement. Throughout, the winds were exemplary and the brass was heard to great advantage.

Of many fine individual moments, William Lane’s horn solo at the start of the slow movement stood out for its combination of nobility and vulnerability.

The concert opened with Mussorgsky’s rarely heard Scherzo in B-flat and “Festive March,” both arranged by Rimsky-Korsakov. The Scherzo was surprisingly light in texture -- at least in its outer sections -- and it could be dropped into an early Tchaikovsky symphony without detection.

The March occasionally echoed the weighty splendor of the coronation scene in the composer’s opera “Boris Godunov” in Rimsky’s orchestration. Neither work is a masterpiece, but those few “Boris” moments were glorious.

--

chris.pasles@latimes.com