Old Salt Kunzel Leads Splashy Show

   A splashy show greeted Friday night's Cincinnati Pops audience at Music Hall.
   There were sea chanteys by the U.S. Navy Sea Chanters, sword fights by drama students from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a hornpipe by the McGing Irish Dancers and aerialist Alexander Streltsov dangling artfully from "rigging" over the stage.
   The Jolly Roger, anchors, lobsters traps, maritime signal flags (including “man overboard”), a skull and pirate’s chest at the foot of the podium and vivid lighting, including a starry sky behind the acoustical towers and palm sihouettes projected onto the proscenium completed the seven seas’ look (lighting designers were Gary Kidney and Stephen Beacock).
   Most of all, there was music about the sea led by Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, an old salt himself who regularly navigates the Atlantic in his 44-foot jet cruiser "Pops."
   It was Kunzel doing what he does best: mine music from popular culture, in this case films, and present it in a thematic context. It is a worthwhile endeavor since many of the 20th-century’s finest composers wrote for film (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Copland and Leonard Bernstein), and much Hollywood music likely will appreciate as time goes by.
   Most of Friday’s program -- a significant achievement for Kunzel and the Pops, who had to master considerable new music in just three rehearsals -- will be recorded for a Telarc CD, "Master and Commander," to be released in the fall.  
   Kunzel opened with Eric Wolfgang Korngold's "Captain Blood" Overture and suite from "Sea Hawk," both stirring and still able to conjure up movie swashbuckler Errol Flynn. Miklos Rozsa's cymbal-splashed "The Mayflower" (from "Plymouth Adventure") included a quotation from "The Shaker Hymn," while selections from "All the Brothers Were Valiant" presaged Rozsa's Oscar-winning "Ben Hur."
   Other spray-sodden selections included the Overture to Franz Waxman's "Anne of the Indies" about a female Blackbeard, Hornpipe from Alfred Newman's "Down to the Sea in Ships" with the high-stepping McGings and music from Hans Zimmer's "Pirates of the Caribbean." The latter featured four costumed CCM students, who drew their foils for a highly credible sword fight directed by CCM fight master K. Jenny Jones in which a dashing hero saves a spunky damsel from a band of pirates.
   One of the musical highlights was "Jack Sparrow" from "Dead Man's Chest" ("Pirates" II), a growlly grumbler, opening with a slithery cello solo by principal cellist Eric Kim. Another was "The Far Side of the World" from "Master and Commander" by Bronislaw Kaper, where concertmaster Timothy Lees' spiccato arpeggios played out beautifully against the strings.
   Streltsov, who gives new meaning to the phrase "string him up," soared above the audience on a strap of white fabric to "Out to Sea" from Elmer Bernstein's "The Buccaneers," then a blood red swath for "Cutthroat Island" by John Debney. The Moscow Circus-trained Streltsov can strike a pose with his outstretched body parallel to the ground using just the force of his arms and make it look easy (well, almost). He donned glitzy black pirate garb to twirl a huge, cube-shaped, red-lit metal frame to Kaper's "Mutiny on the Bounty."
   The sea chanteys (shipboard work songs) were delivered lustily by the men of the Navy Sea Chanters, "Blow the Man Down" and "What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor." They got serious in "Roll Tide" from "Crimson Tide" about mischief aboard a nuclear sub. The women of the chorus were a natural walk-on for "There's Nothin' Like a Dame" from "South Pacific," then stayed for "Honey Bun" and the lovely "Dear Father" from Neil diamond's "Jonathan Livingston Seagull."
   The show closed with John Denver's "Calypso," a rollicking tribute to maritime explorer Jacques Cousteau who died last year (the quote from Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" at the end made a nice touch).
   The entire company encored with "Yo-Ho, Pirates Life for Me" and "Anchors Aweigh" complete with a climactic descent by the Stars and Stripes behind the orchestra. Repeats are 8 p.m. tonight, 3 p.m. Sunday at Music Hall.
(first published in The Cincinnati Post Feb. 3, 2007