Severance Hall was near capacity Friday night for the Cleveland Pops
Orchestra's "Broadway Baritones" concert, one of the en semble's
most focused programs in some time. Music direc tor Carl Topi low made sure
the crowd got its money's worth.
Broadway stalwarts Gregg M. Busch, Michael Lackey and Douglas Webster had
the audience captivated from the moment they strolled onstage, wireless
microphones at the ready, and launched into "New York, New York"
from Leonard Bernstein's venerable show "On the Town," the tale of
three swabbies on shore leave in Gotham.
That brassy chestnut set the tone for the first half of the show, which was
devoted to a nicely curated collection of classics from the Great White Way,
including three very welcome numbers from Frank Loesser's "Guys and
Dolls."
Lackey, fresh from his stint as the Monster in his own show
"Frankenstein," led his colleagues in "Luck Be a Lady
Tonight." Joined by Webster, he followed with "Sit Down, You're
Rockin' the Boat." Then the three burly guys vied for contrapuntal
prominence with a marvelous "Fugue for Tinhorns."
Webster also reprised his specialty, the "Soliloquy" from Rodgers
and Hammerstein's "Carousel," with which he brought down the house
on his last Cleveland Pops appearance. Friday night, Webster's voice sounded a
bit rougher, presumably from winter dryness or perhaps a recent bout with a
virus, but he soldiered on and prevailed in time for the ringing high notes at
the number's climax.
The Pops orchestra numbered slightly more than 60 players, a bit smallish
for the Severance stage but luxuriously large for the repertoire, which in its
native habitat is handled by a pocket-size pit orchestra.
The players sounded particularly fine Friday night, with crisp ensemble
playing and near-perfect balances ably managed by conductor Topilow.
Medleys from Lerner and Loewe's "Camelot," Rodgers and
Hammerstein's "The King and I" and Jerry Herman's "La Cage aux
Folles" gave them a chance to show what some of Cleveland's finest
free-lance musicians can do on short notice.
The second half of the program suffered slightly in comparison with the
first, thanks to the prevalence of items from shows of more recent vintage,
including "City of Angels" and "On the 20th Century" by Cy
Coleman, Frank Wildhorn's "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and Andrew Lloyd
Webber's inevitable " The Phantom of the Opera."
If there's anything that sets this newer stuff a notch or two below the
musicals of Broadway's golden age, it's a lack of genuine melodicism. Coleman,
Herman, Wildhorn and Lloyd Webber have the knack for creating numbers that
fill the formal requirements of the musical, but after the magic of Bernstein,
Loesser, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, the tunes from the
current crop seemed more a matter of going through the motions and meeting
expectations.
Nevertheless, singers and players gave their best, and the clever encore
returned things to a higher note, with Topilow making his Severance Hall
singing debut as part of the quartet for "Standin' on the Corner"
from Frank Loesser's "The Most Happy Fella."
