No, of course, Brian Cohen is not the Messiah (you need to ask?). And at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday night, we all knew very substantially, thank you, that "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)" would not be "The Messiah." It's the bad-boy bit, though, that one wondered about in a jocund mash-up betwixt Handel and "Monty Python's Life of Brian" by Pythoner Eric Idle and conductor John Du Prez.
The question was just how bad a boy Idle was prepared to be. A Hollywood Bowl Hall of Famer, he was part of the divine Monty Python appearance 28 years agone, an event that has a position in the amphitheater's history alongside the 1964 Beatles concert, Percy Grainger's wedding on stagecoach to an unsuspecting Austral- ian naif in 1928 and Zubin Mehta's "Star Wars" concert in the '70s.
But these are touchy times, and the Pythons' mock biblical epic was a controversial film when it was released in 1979. It ends with Brian on the cross, merrily singing and whistling along with a chorus line of the crucified in a happy-go-lucky song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." Religious groups were aghast.
But, no dread, Brian off out Saturday to be quite a nice lad, after all. Even his mum wasn't so bad.
The genesis of this kind of oratorio for Evangelist Monty, four vocal soloists, orchestra, chorus, bagpipers and Bob Dylan imitator was relatively harmless. Idle happens to be a cousin of Peter Oundjian, the head conductor of the Toronto Symphony. The oratorio was commissioned to help tip off Toronto's new June festival, Luminato, last year.
Du Prez, world Health Organization conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Pacific Chorale in the oratorio at the Bowl, is an honorary Python, having worked on their films and co-written the Broadway strike "Spamalot" with Idle. He is also a fine conductor, as was obvious from a lively reading of the oratorio's preliminary, taken from Sousa's "The Liberty Bell" march (a.k.a. the Monty Python theme).
The oratorio follows the plot of the film, in which a schlump named Brian is mistaken for the Messiah. One-liners get amplified into songs, in which doo-wop and coloratura flourishes get along only fine. Laughs were had. The Republicans were skewered. References to the "Lumberjack Song" were inevitable. But overall irreverence, which Monty Python had elevated to an artwork form, did not run particularly high.
"Life of Brian" offended in part through context. "Always Look on the Bright Side" is a absolutely innocent tune without its biblical setting. Indeed, it was a perfectly unacquainted sing-along close Saturday, with the audience waving its hands at evening's end.
More curious, though, was Idle's tendency to sentimentalize. Big Broadway numbers racket, especially for Brian, had little to distinguish them from conventional inspirational music. They were done actually well, and that made them all the more inspirational. The shock value here was directed at those anticipating irreverence.
The one thing this oratorio had going for it was a terrifying performance all around. Idle, described as baritone-ish, served as stand up comedian Evangelist and fugitive Dylan impersonator. He's perpetually been an effective musician, and at 65 he still is.
The four vocal soloists had to do it all -- classical, Broadway, opera, nostalgic pop, Gilbert and Sullivan -- and they pretty much did. William Ferguson, as Brian, was a clear tenor with a clean-cut sound. Shannon Mercer, a shining soprano, was Brian's vocally flexible girlfriend.
Jean Stilwell, who displayed a shiny mezzo, brought warmth, not nastiness, to the un-virgin mother. Baritone Theodore Baerg had the impossible job of vocalizing like the Commendatore in Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and handling John Cleese lines. No one can rend that off.
The Pacific Chorale came to life. The Los Angeles Philharmonic acted as if the players were enjoying themselves. Du Prez doesn't, as a composer, establish the level of wit of a P.D.Q. Bach, but he can shift gears as fast as anyone, and he brought an impressive level of polish to the go-ahead. The splendid Los Angeles Scottish Pipe Band added useful absurdity.
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