Lively, funny Valentine done with love

Monday, February 14, 2005

Donald Rosenberg

Plain Dealer Music Critic

The heart-shaped balloons festooned around the Severance Hall stage Friday hinted that something schmaltzy was up the collective sleeve of the Cleveland Pops Orchestra. And it was. This was "To Broadway with Love," the ensemble's warm and lively ode to Valentine's Day.

Carl Topilow knows an ardent show tune when he conducts one, but he also had the good sense to program a bit of romantic levity. Along with ballads, the program included comic numbers delivered with goofy grace by baritone William Michals and soprano Joan Ellison.

The couple particularly energized two tunes from Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun": the competitive "Anything You Can Do" and the contrapuntally delicious "Old Fashioned Wedding," written for the 1966 Lincoln Center revival. Ellison, a pert bundle of charm with a light lyric soprano, would make an adorable Annie, while Michals has the stalwart baritone and preening presence to bring Frank Butler to dashing life.

Together and alone, the soloists made swooning or fun things of songs from Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Lerner and Loewe shows, as well as two bland items from Alan Menken and Tim Rice's "Beauty and the Beast," in which Michals had the distinction of playing the Beast and Gaston (no, not at the same performances) on Broadway. Menken teamed much more successfully with lyricist Howard Ashman, especially in "Little Shop of Horrors," from which Michals and Ellison sang the sweetly silly "Suddenly Seymour" to endearing effect.

And where were Topilow and the Pops amid all this amorous activity? In spiffy shape, as always, making their way through medleys and accompaniments with ample refinement and zest. Topilow was the tender clarinet soloist in Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" and later picked up a red instrument for Rodgers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine."

But the night's highlight was trombonist Paul Ferguson in Gershwin's "Embraceable You." Ferguson, a principal player in the orchestra, shaped the great melody seamlessly, as few vocalists could, and then improvised around the tune as if preparing to land a big kiss. In purely musical terms, that's love.