Dudamel conducts Daphnis

(Gustavo Dudamel, somewhere in the middle there, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Pacific Chorale after Ravel's Daphnis & Chloe)

There's a bit of Gustavo Dudamel frenzy going on at Walt Disney Concert Hall these two weeks, with Dudamel leading his first full-orchestra concerts with the LA Phil since the orchestra announced that he would be its next music director. At concerts last weekend and this, audiences have excitedly lined up to hear how his upcoming directorship will sound - and both weekends have apparently sold out. KUSC 91.5 hopped on board to broadcast both programs live during at the Sunday matinees. So, it's an event in the classical musical world.

Thursday night's concert included Debussy's prelude to L’après-midi d’un faune, Bartok's Violin Concerto No. 2 and Ravel's complete Daphnis & Chloe. I bought this concert well in advance back in September precisely to hear Dudamel conduct, and also because I love the music for Daphnis and imagined that Faune would sound spectacular in Disney Hall.

The program was much more serious and subtle than the flamboyant showiness of the last time I saw Dudamel, with his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. L'apres midi d'un faune did indeed sound spectacular, all the subtle colors and shades of sound came out shimmering in the Hall, as expected. I confess to being bored for most of the Bartok, even though Leila Josefowicz played very well as the violin soloist. I probably just didn't get it, it was long for a concerto and I didn't find anything in the music to really latch onto for the 35 minute length. More Bartok familiarity for the next listen, perhaps? Ravel's Daphnis is a very long work when performed in its entirety, at 55 minutes. I've seen it staged with the Ashton choreography, so I knew the story and could attach images to the sections of the score. The musical swells with the sound of a huge choir were particularly thrilling, and Dudamel conducted a particularly sensitve reading of the score. In my opinion, though, the score is not as interesting when performed entirely in concert. The middle portion sags when there isn't specific drama accompanying it, and one understands why it's usually the work's finale that is excerpted in concert. I love seeing this staged in Ashton's ballet, though, and still, that finale is pretty glorious to hear.

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This weekend, I'm going to an interesting pair of dance events. The first is traditional, in the Tchaikovsky Perm Ballet's Swan Lake. This Russian company is wonderfully trained, and the production is by Natalia Makarova. It promises to be miles better than American Ballet Theatre's rocky performances of Swan Lake last weekend. Then, on Saturday, I'm seeing Lalala Human Steps in Amjad, which the LA Times preview says "fires a cannonball into Swan Lake" - it will be very fun the night after a traditional Swan. The company is fantastic, they perform pointe work blazingly fast, so I'm looking forward to it.