‘Atget’s Paris’ Brings City of Light to Getty

It’s not often that a mere concert raises fascinating issues these days, but certainly “Atget’s Paris: Music From the Street to the Opera House”--Saturday night’s kickoff to the Getty Center’s “Music With a View” series--tried to air one. That is, do we tend to ignore the significance of the popular culture of the past--in this case, late-19th century Paris--in favor of so-called “high art”?

With that in mind, UCLA’s Robert Winter tried to open a window into the past--first with a set of period transcriptions for wind ensemble, then a freely compiled cabaret set with all kinds of things ranging from the original bawdy version of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” (“Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman”) to a rarefied art song by Debussy (“C’est l’extase”). Furthermore, the concert was enhanced by projections from the Getty’s current exhibit of Eugene Atget’s moody, amazingly clear photographs of turn-of-the-century Paris.

We got some answers right away. There’s a good reason why the arrangements of music like Saint-Saens’ “Le Rouet d’Omphale,” ballet music from Massenet’s “Thais,” funeral music from Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung,” and lots of lugubrious marches haven’t been played much in the last 100 years: They’re dull. Nor did the often-strained performances by Kevin McKeown and the UCLA Wind Ensemble give any shape or passion to these lumpish artifacts.

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Yet the cabaret act was lots of fun, made even more involving by the projected English supertitles and Winter’s hyper-lively commentary. Soprano Karen Benjamin and tenor Greg Fedderly expertly projected the satirical humor and occasional straightforward sentiment, Winter accompanied agreeably on piano, and the cliche of the accordion being a cheesy plaything was exploded by the subtle, infinitely expressive, technically dazzling playing of Nicholas Ariondo.

Still, one suspects that the first half, like Atget’s photographs, may have been the more accurate image.