Mauceri, in Search of California

John Mauceri tried to come up with a fresh variation on the Hollywood Bowl’s “Great American Concert” Friday night, riffing on the theme of California’s sesquicentennial. What the maestro offered, though, was mostly the views of outsiders--his own sardonic, informative, always entertaining, distinctly New York-flavored commentaries and scraps of often specious musical Californiana.

After opening with an edited “Hoe-Down” from Copland’s “Rodeo” (eliminating the section where audiences often mistakenly applaud), Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra offered a brief taste from Victor Herbert’s opera “Natoma”--a schmaltzy fantasia capped by a crude Indian episode.

Another opera about California made elsewhere, Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West,” was represented by its Prelude and baritone Gregg Baker singing “Che ferrano i vecchi miei” (whose words actually speak of homesickness) with the Pacific Chorale.

Mauceri delivered his most enterprising strokes with the West Coast premieres of rare western-themed 1939 concert works by two of Broadway’s leading lights. Kurt Weill’s “Railroads on Parade,” a folk song fantasia laced with threads of Berlin cabaret and counterpoint, was a most revealing artifact of the composer’s quick conversion to American ways. Richard Rodgers’ ballet “Ghost Town” was a cobbled-together string of several episodes, some of which sang out in the distinctive Rodgers melodic manner.

Afterward, the gaudily outfitted cowboy band “Riders in the Sky” entertained the crowd by both respecting and sending up western favorites such as “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and “Rawhide,” supported by orchestrations that fit surprisingly well.

Reading his audience astutely, instead of playing the entire Rossini “William Tell” Overture, Mauceri cut right to the chase with the “Hi-O-Silver” Finale--which triggered yet another inventive Gene Evans fireworks display (best were the flaming arrows streaking across the stage to split a fiery apple).

Interestingly, all of the selections actually written in California--”Silverado,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “How the West Was Won”--came from what some outsiders still think is California’s only art form--the movies. Needless to say, that ain’t the whole story, pardner.