Music Review : Upshaw, the Philharmonic and a Big Screen

It happens every September: Fall traffic jams begin, students return to school and, at the Hollywood Bowl, despite the virtually inevitable heat waves of coming weeks, a chill invades the night air in Cahuenga Pass. So it was Tuesday, when Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic began the ninth--and their final--week of this 78th summer season.

The orchestra’s two closing offerings--the second one tonight--are attractive and serious programs. At the first, Salonen put together Ravel’s “Sheherazade” with Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” and introduced both with another colorful work, a revival of the first (and so far the only) entry in the Filmharmonic series--David Newman’s “1001 Nights,” with animated film, first seen and heard in April 1998.

Making a belated Bowl debut, Dawn Upshaw, the American soprano who is a particular friend of this orchestra, was the careful and engaging soloist in Ravel’s early masterpiece. Her deep identification with Klingsor’s text, and conductor Salonen’s light-handed leadership of the orchestra, resulted in a compelling performance.

The Bowl continues to simulcast its programs on a video screen above the shell--effectively adding to the audience’s ability to scrutinize the playing and singing. What would have added even more pleasure would have been a translation of the French text also projected onto the screen.

Rimsky’s charming showpiece suite, which by late 20th century standards usually seems to sprawl, moved along in Salonen’s first-time-with-this-orchestra performance--a matter of the conductor’s aggressive tempos and pacing, the exuberant virtuosity of the playing, and the visual interest created by the big-screen close-ups of all that activity.

It was a pleasing, if in some moments rough, reading. And the orchestral soloists--including concertmaster Martin Chalifour, hornist Jerry Folsom, clarinetist Michele Zukovsky, cellist Ronald Leonard, flutist Anne Diener Zentner, oboist David Weiss, bassoonist David Breidenthal and trumpeter Thomas Stevens--all contributed brilliantly.

The revival of “1001 Nights” netted renewed admiration for the slick and painterly images conceived and designed by Yoshitaka Amano and for the solid and colorful musical accompaniment devised by David Newman, writing for a huge standard orchestra with additional electronic and percussion resources.

Again, the visual dominated the aural; afterward, the animator’s not-so-subtle erotic pictures are what one carried over into the Ravel performance.