The Set List

Gustavo Dudamel Raises the Wow Factor

Classical music as theater? Let the experts wax on about the brilliant performances conductor Gustavo Dudamel elicits from his band; from the point of view of an enthusiast, Dudamel is a thrilling showman, a dancer on the podium who the Los Angeles Philharmonic responding with multi-hued and multi-layered performances on Sunday afternoon. If the marriage works as well as it did on his first concerts since being named music director designate of the L.A Phil, we could be in for a very long honeymoon.
Dudamel takes over from Esa-Pekka Salonen in the fall of 2009 and his two-week stay at Walt Disney Concert Hall - works by Berlioz, Profkofiev and Salonen over the weekend, Ravel, Bartok and Debussy starting Thursday - instantly became one of the hottest tickets in town. "60 Minutes," the New York Times, L.A. Times and the New Yorker have let their jaws drop as they chronicle the 27-year-old Venezuelan's emergence; his Sunday show supported their enthusiasm.
He had the tall task of conducting Salonen's post-9/11 piece "Insomnia," a work given its darkness by odd-sounding Wagner tubas, nine basses bowed in unison and a vast assortment of percussion. As is his wont, Dudamel found the light inside the work and elicited a striking depth of field.
To some degree, it reminded these ears of the difference between John Adams conducting his own work and Salonen taking the podium to lead an Adams piece such as "Naive and Sentimental Music." Adams opts for precision, detail and control; Salonen produces a fuller canvas.
Dudamel took a back seat on Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, a showy sprint of a piece that Simon Trpceski blazed through. Within the context of setting a land speed record, Dudamel got the orchestra to play with a sense of give and take, laying back in some passages and creating tension in others. (The conductor won charm points by sitting on the podium during Trpceski's far gentler encore). 
After two works that required some deference on Dudamel's part, the conductor went wild on Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, a 50 minute five-movement work from 1830. Working without a score, Dudamel through himself into Berlioz's self-portrait and provided a dizzying focal point for the work. He conducts with his entire body, assuming the hop-hop-hop of a child pretending to ride a horse, standing on his toes and reaching over his head to draw out delicate tones from woodwinds, and shimmying with his shoulders, hands by his side, during a particularly whimsical passage. He twists in a two-armed backhand motion to summon a powerful entry, waves the baton at knee height to goad some swirling bass tones and culls a few buoyant bars out of the violins just by moving his head left and right. 
This is what will keep audiences coming back for more. The orch responds to his enthusiasm and generates a sound that is playful and enticing; as animated as he gets, the playing never becomes  a series of curlicues. Can't wait to go back for more.    

 

The Conductor As a Rock Star: L.A.'s Choice Has New York Cooing

"60 Minutes" was inordinately prideful at the conclusion of its piece on Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Reporter Bob Simon was adamant that the next time any viewer heard about Dudamel, they could say they saw him on the CBS Sunday night news program first.
Such is the pride that surrounds this conductor, a "rock star" of the classical field as "60 Minutes" called him. There's a rush to chronicle his rise to prominence over the last dozen years, but the Dudamel story has a distinct life of its own:  This is the rare story in which New York is tipping its hat to Los Angeles.
Mysteriously, the Gotham media is accepting - and glorifying - Dudamel at face value, praising his skill on the podium, his attitude and work ethic, and his suddenly cemented place in the classical music world. The zinger is that New York media is doing it without taking potshots at Los Angeles or how the city might strip him of his talents; the media is not even questioning the wisdom of giving a young conductor his first major orchestral job in the U.S.
Dudamel is 26 years old and conducts Venezuela's Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which toured the U.S. in November, six months after being announced the L.A. Philharmonic's music director beginning in September 2009.  He replaces Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Finnish conductor and composer who elevated the status of L.A.'s orchestra through performance and programming, a famous world tour in the mid-90s and a glorious concert hall that opened in 2003. Salonen has become a landmark figure in Los Angeles and the classical world has followed his lead. He has matched the popular and the experimental like no one before him, merging the modern and historical across a broad spectrum of music, including  pop, jazz and world music.
Salonen, who turns 50 this year, had to earn his stripes when he came on board in 1990; Dudamel arrives with media trumpets blaring - he's like the newly signed baseball player expected to hit .300 and, 40 home runs, steal 30 bases and play solid defense.  Salonen didn't have that luxury. He had to watch plans for a new hall come, go and return, much like recording contracts for himself and the L.A. band. Classical music and orchestras were a dying breed while he was setting the course for the L.A. Phil; orchestras in other cities that dumbed down programming while he took the opposite tack and proved not only successful here, his style was mimicked in other cities such as New York.
The portrayal of Dudamel is as the superstar product of Venezuela's "las sistema," the public education program that puts instruments into the hands of children. he is exciting to watch, a passionate and exuberant baton waver (Salonen is no slouch either  on the podium, just a bit more stern looking).   
Youth and looks - he's attractive as is his wife - are definitely Hollywood qualities yet the L.A. Phil has, in recent years, deliberately stayed away from the studio Salonen and the people who program  Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl have had far greater success reaching out to rock acts, particularly indie performers such as Belle & Sebastian, the Decemberists, Sigur Ros and Bright Eyes.
No one really knows about Dudamel's tastes  - Salonen's favorite band has long been Radiohead - and whether he will continue to offer that connection between classical and unlikely rock acts. He is certainly committed to youth orchestras and it's quite possible he enters the L.A. job with a good sense of how to make that part of his equation.
Salonen will announce the programming for his final season as music conductor in a week; Dudamel returns to L.A. to conduct Salonen's "Insomnia" and Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique" at the end of March. While  a smooth transition benefits all parties, this will be one fascinating torch passing: Salonen stepping away with a body of work that stands on its one yet is clearly only a significant chapter in his artistic life; Dudamel arriving with the world's eyes affixed to every move. It can't be comfortable, but it should make great theater and, the locals hope, a triumph.