Philharmonic begins season on solid note

After two years of searching, the Las Vegas Philharmonic season got off to a strong start Saturday with its new music director Donato Cabrera at the helm.

The evening’s program could be called “eclectic” if one cannot find a less genteel term for a curious mixture. In his defense, the program’s content was set and announced well before Cabrera’s appointment was made known last spring, but he made the best of it.

We heard two overtures, some Broadway show tunes, a piece from “Porgy and Bess,” brief arias by Wagner and Beethoven, a “choreographic poem” by Ravel, an exciting but all-too-short new work by a young American composer, the whole preceded by the audience singing “The Star- Spangled Banner” in a rarely heard orchestration by Arturo Toscanini.

The evening’s guest artist was soprano Deborah Voigt, perhaps best known from her role as host of the Metropolitan Opera’s “The Met: Live in HD” series.

The overture to Wagner’s first widely acclaimed opera, “The Flying Dutchman,” opened the evening. Cabrera gave the terrifying legend of the phantom ship that could not be sunk musical life and energy. It was an excellent opening for an evening that promised both drama and artistry. Miss Voight took the stage for two brief arias, “Du bist der Lenz” (“You are the Spring”) from Wagner’s “Die Walkure” and “Abscheulicher” (“Abominable One”) from Beethoven’s “Fidelio.”

The first is a love song, the second an expression of hatred for the man who has imprisoned the heroine’s husband. Voight’s presentation did not distinguish which was which. She has been criticized in past for her ability to communicate emotion. Perhaps this evening showed why.

The first half was brought to a close with Beethoven’s “Leonore Overture No. 3.” This is one of four attempts Beethoven made to create an overture for his only opera, “Fidelio.” We heard No. 3, a work Beethoven believed had such stunning emotional effect that it dwarfed the entire opera.

His fourth attempt, simply titled “Fidelio,” is what is generally heard in today’s productions. Cabrera and the orchestra even gave such careful attention to the descending scale passage that opens the work that its ominous style forecast clearly what was to come.

Following intermission we heard for the first time a too-short work by Mason Bates, “Attack, Delay, Sustain, Release.”

Voight then returned to sing Jerome Kern’s “Why Was I Born?” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” followed by “My Man’s Gone Now” from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” She has been lauded for the quality of the lower reaches of her range, but Saturday that range was barely discernible. She was not being covered by the orchestra.

Rather, it seemed she simply didn’t produce sound adequate to fill the usually very forgiving Reynolds Hall. And when she did she seemed to swallow her words, becoming quite difficult to understand.

Closing the program was Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse,” a minor masterpiece by a composer not usually noted for his music’s force and tension. Ravel labeled his increasingly harsh piece a “Poeme Choreographique,” at the beginning drawing upon certain devices of Johann Strauss Jr. but soon abandoning even hints of the Waltz King’s grace in favor of harshness and near violence at the close.

In January, when Cabrera was last here, we said he “…cuts a commanding figure on the podium but his conducting style is not overbearing. It’s apparent the players like him.” Those observations appear to apply even more strongly now. We eagerly await seeing him design and prepare a program of his own choosing. The growth of this orchestra under Donato Cabrera will be fun to watch.