BOSTON POPS-COLE PORTER NIGHT

Boston Pops, conductor Keith Lockhart has done a wonderful job making the Pops enjoyable to a wider audience.  Tonight, devoted to Cole Porter, Michael Scarola, stage director, he used eight voices: four women, four men, and two dancers.

Writing down the people who performed, unless you've seen them before,  tells you little.  This really was a 'You had to be there' evening.  While I do not recall many Pops concerts where a piano was heard throughout but not as a solo instrument, Christopher O'Reilly was significant in his filling in to make the orchestra believable in Cole Porter interpretations.  He has traveled a long way from his days with Russell Sherman at the N. E, Conservatory of Music.  Kelli O'Hara was sensational, stunning in her vocal range and the versatility she produced responding to demands placed on her  Jason Daniely, her co-star, a Broadway actor, singer, concert performer and recording artist, was good though his parts did not produce the projection and charisma that Kelli gave out.

The other singers were: tenor, Matthew Anderson, soprano, Danya Katok, mezzo-soprano, Laura Mercado-Wright, baritone,  David McFerrin. The stars and singers' CV's are awesome. The two dancers were Caley Crawford and Eric Johnson, both still students at the Boston Conservatory.    So much for the people who were so entertaining, such consummate performers, and who gave the audience far more than most of us bargained for.

Not surprisingly, there was a gum chewing lady next to my friend who was displeased because she claimed there were not enough' visuals'.  She had been to Pops twice last year, she informed us, and it was much better because they had 'visuals'.  Fortunately the person between us spared my telling her she should have gone to the movies if she wanted 'visuals'.  The producer, however, came through when I Love Paris  was sung and they dropped down screens with shots of Paris. I so badly wanted to tell her this was a musical concert not a movie.  It was beyond me to think that she needed 'visuals' to understand the extraordinary lyrics and signature music of Porter. I left her to her gum chewing.

Before the performance started, we were treated to the lecture about locating the exits and filing out calmly  in case of emergency.  I couldn't resist leaning over to the stranger next to me and telling her he forgot to mention that, if necessary, the cushion under her seat could be used as a flotation device. Since we were in the first balcony, she looked at me like any New Englander would, to see if I showed any other psychotic signs, the seemed to take me seriously just before she broke up laughing, telling me how funny that was.  Like a Boy Scout, to see someone laugh heartily, I considered that my good deed for the day,

With much pleasure, I noted there are still lots of Pops evening left this summer..



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

AN EVENING WITH JUDY GARLAND

The Boston Pops, under the direction of Maestro Doug Katsaros brought a mostly older audience to 50 years ago. We who remembered the emotion, talent, and constant suffering endured by this performer, were spellbound to watch her image projected through modern technology on a video screen while singing to the accompaniment of one of the best Pops orchestras of today, The Boston Pops.

Meeting a lady in the ladies room before the performance started we both commented on having no idea what we were to experience. I said (thinking someone would be impersonating her or something like that since I never read reviews), "I wonder if we will be listening to a dead lady sing." We did indeed, after we were first introduced to her beloved son, Joe. He represented himself and his sister at the Judy Garland three day festival and they have a site to promote the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids Michigan.

We were treated to some of the kinder views, such as a picture of Judy in her London home in 1961 with her three children (she died there 8 years later).
The choices of film shown were wonderful, biographic and kind to
the later failing Judy, very ill, and living on the pills the studios had made necessary to her existence. What the movie studios did to her life was inexcusable
then and certainly would not be allowed today.

Heard was the Judy Garland who felt every word she sang and made the listener experience the meaning of lyrics ( novelty in
today's world of pop music).

We were treated to familiar songs beyond Over the Rainbow, The Man That Got Away, After You've Gone, By Myself, A Cottage for Sale, and several medleys which would have been familiar to all of her fans. If you are so unfortunate not to have known her
when she was alive and entertaining us all...listen to and watch this video of GET HAPPY

Thanks to YouTube and people who have retained the performances of such talented people, those who have left the performance world but leave us a legacy of music from the heart and gift of talent beyond the ordinary. From Horowitz to Miles Davis, from Mel Torme to Ella Fitzgerald, we can only wish there was video in stereo to let us hold onto the so many who have gone from us. What a wonderful way for the two Luft children to honor their mother's memory. Thanks to the wisdom of the Boston Pops Orchestra for seeing their way out of the box for just a minute for their audience's deep appreciation.