REVIEW: Gustavo Dudamel and Natalia Lafourcade Build Bridges With L.A. Phil
Above, Natalia Lafourcade and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus at Carnegie Hall, photo by Fadi Kheir.
October 10, 2024
Carnegie Hall’s 2024-25 season opened with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in three concerts that established a jubilant tone for the venue’s new festival, Nuestros sonidos (“Our Sounds”), which celebrates the impact of Latin-American culture on the United States. WQXR’s Live Broadcast of the Opening Night Gala on Tuesday night was a terrific listen, featuring Lang Lang in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 — fiercely individualist and dripping with sensuality — and the great Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s rarely heard complete ballet score Estancia.
The middle concert featured Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the New York premiere of a Carnegie Hall co-commission, Dzonot by Gabriela Ortiz. The brilliant Mexican composer was featured again the following evening, when Dudamel and the LA Phil let their hair down, embracing the breadth and sweep of Latin-American music with a program of three contemporary compositions that showcased the orchestra’s virtuosity before transitioning into supporting players behind Mexican chanteuse Natalia Lafourcade. Multi-Grammy winner Lafourcade, clearly a big draw, brought a radiant stage presence and an impressive number of songs that had the packed house singing along (in Spanish), and by the generous set’s conclusion, dancing on their feet.
Photo by Fadi Kheir.
Puerto Rican-born Roberto Sierra’s Alegría is the perfect overture. Sierra was a student of Ligeti and uses the term “topicalization” to describe his marriage of European tradition with Latin American folk; this brisk, edgy concert work showcased the LA Phil’s various strengths with driving excitement and an air of optimism. Intricate, frenetic rhythms were played so tightly they burned. The orchestra’s percussion section (whose panoply of instruments physically dominated the stage) electrified the thunderous thrusts of adrenaline, and the solo trumpet was especially fearless and triumphant in high, sharply angled, Copland-esque fanfares.
Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 9, a workout for orchestra, could be the soundtrack for a slick advertisement for Dudamel’s Philharmonic. One section of instruments after another is given a turn with delectable Hollywood-inflected melodies: roaring muted brass, icy-clean woodwind combinations, crooning low strings. The ensemble’s peerless intonation was evident when the tuba and high woodwinds mirrored each other in a climactic statement before the work whirled to a danceable finish. Both of these pieces were receiving their Carnegie Hall premieres.
Gabriela Ortiz takes a bow, with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil at Carnegie Hall. Photo by Fadi Kheir.
Team Percussion played a pivotal role in Ortiz’s Antrópolis — an ode to Mexico City’s dance halls — originally commissioned to celebrate Philip Glass’s 80th birthday and played here in a revised version. Feverishly agitated, yet palpably joyous, Ortiz’s dense score depicted the sonic sensations that accompany mind-erasing nightlife. The doors open with a bombastic ambush from the percussion section — timpani athletically played to sound like timbales — and takes a lap around the stage to flirt cheek to cheek with the woodwinds, then the brass, in piquant habanero-infused harmonies. Dudamel exudes joy from the podium.
Following intermission, Lafourcade and her septet of musicians led by Cheche Clara — who played Wurlitzer, Hammond organ, and accordion — joined Dudamel and presented a sprawling hour-and-a-half of material ranging from the catchily sweet to the rousingly anthemic, often centering humanitarian themes. Lafourcade spoke mostly in Spanish (of which I only understand a little) but the material was drawn from her several recordings, including 2022’s bewitching De Todas las Flores.
Surrounded by guitars and conga drums, and leaning into, and floating above, the luxurious (and cleverly orchestrated) Philharmonic accompaniment, Lafourcade sings with a honey-toned lyric mezzo, and crisp, communicative diction. Her songs (largely her own compositions) range from liltingly infectious to hauntingly melancholy. Somewhere between the Taylor Swift, the Björk (the orchestral scope and artful ambition) and the Barbra Streisand (perhaps a stretch, but her voice is definitely like manteca, and she certainly holds her own, musically, in front of the large orchestra) of Mexico.
The music was beautiful, but more important was the message. Joined for several numbers by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Lafourcade spoke of “building bridges” between cultural divides — of her support for humanitarian causes — highlighting the common ground between classical and popular music, and the value of stepping outside of our usual stomping grounds.
