Rick Schultz
Los Angeles Times
There are nights at the Hollywood Bowl when the music alone produces fireworks. On Thursday, a large audience for guest conductor Stéphane Denève and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s program of sparkling works by Bernstein, Ravel and Gershwin got the benefit of both musical and actual pyrotechnics. The curtain-raiser was a rousing account of Bernstein’s colorful “Candide” Overture. In the composer’s Three Dance Episodes from “On the Town,” Denève passionately shaped “The Great Lover,” (…)
After intermission, Denève gave a vibrant reading of Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” conveying its bluesy sense of a visitor’s homesickness and wonder in the City of Light. (…)