Super finish with Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein was one of the certified geniuses in American music, and his genius often took an unexpected form: the Broadway melody.
His “serious” music – symphonies and requiems – were certainly well-respected and undoubtedly more fitting for his position as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
Yet his most lasting musical legacy may well be the Broadway music that the Spokane Symphony SuperPops series will celebrate on Saturday to close its 2007-08 season.
More than any other composer since Gershwin, Bernstein elevated the Broadway score into a serious art form. By serious, we mean “sophisticated and complex,” not solemn and stolid.
Anybody who has ever heard “New York, New York” from “On the Town,” or “Glitter and Be Gay” from “Candide,” never will accuse Bernstein of being stodgy. Bright, brilliant and bouncy would be better descriptions.
Resident Conductor Morihiko Nakahara will conduct Saturday’s concert, and the orchestra will be accompanied by a quintet of vocalists: lyric soprano Kristy Fox, baritone Quincy Marr, bass Randel Wagner, baritone Max Mendez and soprano Dawn Marie Wolski. (Wolski also will be featured in the Spokane String Quartet’s season-ending concert Sunday; see story at left.)
Most people can whistle Bernstein’s Broadway music because of one show, “West Side Story,” one of the most popular and enduring musicals in Broadway history.
Saturday’s program will include plenty of songs from this New York street gang update of “Romeo and Juliet.” Two of those are among the most beautiful love songs ever written for the Broadway stage: “Maria” and “Somewhere.”
It also features some of the more sprightly tunes from “West Side Story,” including “Mambo,” “Cool” and “Rumble.”
Bernstein’s other musicals are not performed as often, but they are every bit as beloved by connoisseurs. Chief among them is “Candide,” the brilliant operetta adaptation of the Voltaire satire.
On Saturday, you’ll hear the Overture, along with “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” “I Am Easily Assimilated,” “Make Our Garden Grow” and the tour de force vocal piece, “Glitter and Be Gay.”
Bernstein’s “On the Town” is also well-known, especially for the signature tune “New York, New York,” which contains the line: “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.”
The orchestra will perform that tune along with “Lonely Town,” “Carried Away” and the Overture.
The program also includes “Dream With Me” from “Peter Pan,” and “What A Waste” and “A Little Bit in Love” from “Wonderful Town.”
The evening’s vocalists have a wealth of classical and Broadway experience. Wolski appeared in “The Rape of Lucrece” at the Manhattan School of Music. Fox, a vocal student at Eastern Washington University, has appeared in “Candide” and “Into the Woods.”
Marr has recently toured in the big-band revue “In the Mood” and previously appeared with the symphony in its Andrew Lloyd Webber SuperPops program.
Wagner is the director or choral and vocal activities at EWU, and a former regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera auditions. Mendez is a well-known local singer who has appeared in shows ranging from “Tosca” to “Man of La Mancha.”