Tilson Thomas does his grandparents proud

SAN FRANCISCO —  The death of Yiddish has long been foretold by Hebrew-centric Jewish scholars, much as the impending demise of the orchestra has helped keep some journalists-cum-undertakers in business. In either case, it’s a ridiculously easy call. All things die, including languages and arts institutions. Let’s not be hasty, though.

Wednesday night at Davies Symphony Hall here, Yiddish was alive. The San Francisco Symphony was alive. And they came together for “The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater,” which a spokesperson for the orchestra described as the hottest ticket of the season. “Nightline” recently devoted 20 minutes to the project. The concert was sold out a month ago.

The program was a special evening that Michael Tilson Thomas, the orchestra’s music director, put together to remember his colorful grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, two of the biggest stars of Yiddish theater in New York a century ago. They were characters, bigger than life, and the evening proved to be three hours of pure pleasure. But something bigger was in the air.

Tilson Thomas made his Thomashefsky show, created for Carnegie Hall earlier this year, the centerpiece of a larger San Francisco Symphony June festival. “Of Thee I Sing: Yiddish Theater, Broadway and the American Voice,” which ends tonight, brought out the Yiddish accent in such quintessentially American composers as Copland, Gershwin and Bernstein.

Beyond telling delightful tales of the Thomashefskys and presenting a forgotten world and its music vibrantly re-created by a group of versatile performers, the conductor had an important message to convey Wednesday night: If he is one of the most far-reaching and innovative personalities in classical music today, and one of our deepest interpreters, that may have a little something to do with tradition. The old and the new are not so far apart as you might think.

Only a small part of the Thomashefsky evening was about Tilson Thomas. Who, after all, could compete with Boris? He was a great singer and great producer, with great sexual charm and a wide streak of self-destruction. “What more do you need,” his grandson asked, “to be a legend?”

Tilson Thomas didn’t know Boris. He died in 1939, five years before Tilson Thomas was born. But he did know Bessie, who was the prototype for Fanny Brice and Barbra Streisand. She was a glamorous trendsetter styled by Max Factor, a pioneering feminist, a femme fatale (her Yiddish “Salome” included the “Dance of the Seven Shmattes”).

In her old age, she hung out with Ava Gardner and the like at the Hollywood Roosevelt during the week and visited the Thomas family in the San Fernando Valley on weekends. “Your parents,” she told Tilson Thomas, who was a child prodigy, “are very nice, but conventional. They are not like us.” She had a flair for “trouser” roles. Her grandson’s first set of tails had been hers.

The program, directed by Patricia Birch, was an ambitious and agreeable mishmash, which meant it suited its material. Tilson Thomas offered reminiscences and conducted a small orchestra. Lively music was dredged up, some of it unheard for a hundred years. Much of it was hysterically funny, including an antic Bar Mitzvah March from “Dos Pintele Yid” (A Little Spark of Jewishness) and “Biznes Befor Plezhur” from “Der Yidisher Yankee Doodle.” Some things you just had to imagine, such as Boris’ Yiddish Parsifal or his “Hasidic” Hamlet -- Shakespeare, he advertised, “translated and improved.”

Judy Blazer was a dazzling Bessie, chewing scenery. Eugene Brancoveanu could only approximate the larger-than-life Boris, but you got the idea. The singers Shuler Hensley and Ronit Widmann-Levy brought additional flair to the show. Projections of photographs and the one extant film of Boris (age 75 and still commanding) were seamlessly integrated into the rest.

But what made the biggest impression was simply how powerful theater was to the teeming life and culture of New York’s Lower East Side. It was always wildly seat-of-your-pants. Fake something charming, Boris would tell his fellow actors, until Mrs. Thomashefsky exits the stage.

Yet for all its silliness, the Yiddish stage took on social issues too controversial for the tame Broadway of the times -- women’s rights, birth control, assimilation, class struggle. This was theater high and low all at the same delirious time. It was comic and tragic. And so were the Thomashefskys. Bessie ultimately walked out on the philandering Boris and became his competitor. He became a sad caricature of himself in his later years, though he remained so beloved that when he died, 30,000 fans followed his coffin through the streets. The Thomashefskys had impact.

Debra Winger made a special appearance to read from a newspaper column that Bessie wrote about keeping your neck youthful looking. Judy Kaye stepped in for a high-stepping version of “Who Do you Suppose Married My Sister? Thomashefsky” by the same songwriting team who wrote “Shine on Harvest Moon.”

Tilson Thomas ended with Bessie’s recipe for strudel: Wash your face, put on a clean apron and then go into the kitchen and make the strudel. And that, he said, is what he does when he conducts Mahler. He washes his face, puts on a clean shirt and goes out and makes strudel.

It’s great strudel, and it doesn’t come from nowhere.