The Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Lockhart conducting
Opening Night with Guest Artist Linda Eder in a Musical Tribute to Judy Garland; John Oddo, Music Director and Piano; David Finck, Bass; Clint de Ganon, Drums
Performances through May 13 at 8 pm at Symphony Hall, Boston; Box Office: SymphonyCharge 617-266-1200 or 888-266-1200 or www.bostonpops.org
More than a month after the first pitch was thrown at Fenway Park and a couple of weeks later than the launch of the Swan Boats at the Public Garden, the third sure sign of spring in Boston arrived with a fanfare at Symphony Hall last night. The Boston Pops Orchestra opened its 126th season with festive flair and special guest Broadway musical star Linda Eder in a tribute to Judy Garland.
Following a complimentary pre-concert reception in the Cohen wing, Keith Lockhart stepped up to the conductor's podium for his 16th opening night celebration. Mother Nature did not provide the most inviting of evenings, but the dank chill melted away once the sounds of Peter Boyer's "Silver Fanfare" filled the venerable hall. (Boyer composed the music for "The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers," one of the program highlights of the 125th Pops commemorative year.) That was followed by the light-hearted "Overture to Zampa," an 1831 comic opera by Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold, and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Capriccio Espagnol." The latter featured several solo spots for orchestra members, including Concertmaster Tamara Smirnova.
As Lockhart explained to the audience, it is the Pops' mission to "make popular music great and make great music popular." Shifting gears from the classical to some of the best of American musical styles, the theme for the 2011 season, the Maestro lead a medley called "Gershwin in Love," arranged by Don Sebesky. With all due respect to Richard Rodgers, these pieces included some of the sweetest sounds in the great American songbook. "Love Walked In" was rich with strings; horns introduced "Our Love Is Here To Stay" and then handed it over to the strings; a brassy trumpet theme opened "Someone to Watch Over Me," before the strings swept in again; "The Man I Love" featured a Gershwin signature-style piano theme, the full orchestra swelling up dramatically and romantically, and a final build to crashing cymbals and thundering timpani. Heaven!
In keeping with the Pops tradition of inviting the audience to sing along, the organization invited singers from around the country to submit video renditions of "Over the Rainbow" for possible inclusion in a video collage to be shown at performances through the June 26th end of the season (view on Boston Pops YouTube channel or www.bostonpops.org). The debut of the video by Sopan Deb was a hit, especially with local "stars" in attendance from the Boston City Singers and Lesley Ellis School in Arlington.
A live sing-along opportunity for audience members dressed as their favorite character from The Sound of Music came to fruition for about fifteen hardy souls. The motley crew of (mostly) young aspirants, attired in black nuns' habits and an array of lederhosen and alpine hats, lined the front of the stage with the honorary Captain von Trapp (radio personality Ron Della Chiesa) and the governess Maria (Boston arts advocate Joyce Kulhawik) to lead the medley of half a dozen songs from the show by Rodgers and Hammerstein (arrangement by Bennett).
To start the second half of the show, Lockhart and the orchestra provided live accompaniment to "Shall We Dance," a video shot locally by frequent Boston Pops collaborators Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett. And then, the pièce de résistance: Linda Eder swept onstage and swept us away with her inimitable interpretation of the songs of Judy Garland. She launched the set with the upbeat "Almost Like Being in Love/This Can't Be Love" by two great American songwriting teams, Lerner and Loewe and Rodgers and Hart, respectively.
