Concert has champagne character > BSO bubbly, sweet, a little intoxicating

The Bangor Symphony Orchestra showed sparkling versatility Saturday at the Maine Center for the Arts, where it performed a benefit pops concert of Broadway tunes.

Conductor Christopher Zimmerman, who recently joined the faculty at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Connecticut, blithely led the orchestra as well as three professional singers affiliated with Michael Herzlin Productions in New York City. The combination had a champagne quality to it: bubbly, a bit intoxicating, and very sweet.

The program — called “A Century of Song — 100 Years of Broadway” — was designed by Sara Louise Lazarus, an actor and director, as a vocal walk through America’s lasting contribution to popular culture by way of musical theater.

The show began with an instrumental overture honoring George M. Cohan, and then gleefully wondered through works by Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Lerner and Loewe, Frank Loesser, Kander and Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and others before concluding with a segment from the current smash revival “Annie Get Your Gun.” Irving Berlin’s conclusion is apt here: There’s no business like show business.

Indeed, what other forum would allow three talented singers to stand before and audience hamming it up to the accompaniment of an able-bodied orchestra? The singers — Gregg Edelman, Patricia Ben Peterson and Timothy Shew — all have respectable on-screen and on-stage credits. Their voices, which are crisp and bright in that show-tune style, underscored their collective years of character singing.

They were also quite willing to beef up the historical narrative, which could, at times, be canned and corny in the way Lawrence Welk’s TV show used to be.

But never mind that. The audience enjoyed hearing the old tunes that are easy to listen to and lovely to hum on the ride home.

Among the liveliest numbers was “The Rain in Spain” from “My Fair Lady,” in which Zimmerman, who is part British, turned from his conducting duties to instruct Peterson (as Eliza Doolittle) in proper pronunciation. The three singers took it from there and recreated the boisterous scene from the show.

Peterson’s soprano could be extraordinarily loud over the mike, which sometimes turned her otherwise bold vocal quality harsh. It was tempting to want to hear her sing “On My Own” from “Les Miserables” without any miking, but she charmed the audience in all of her roles.

Even before reading that Shew had performed in “Les Miz,” it was clear his voice, which is rich and soulful, was born to be featured in that show. The great misfortune of the evening was to be denied his rendition of any of the Jean Valjean numbers. Nevertheless, Shew took off in “This Is the Moment,” a not very interesting ballad from “Jekyll and Hyde.”

Here’s the hardest part to admit about Saturday’s performance: One of the most touching pieces was “Music of the Night” from the schmaltzy “Phantom of the Opera.” Edelman smoothly gave this sentimental tune depth. His performance of the behemoth “Soliloquy” from “Carousel” had exactly the right confidence and vulnerability.

And it was terrific to see him and Shew perform “You Are Nothing Without Me” from “City of Angels,” for which Edelman received a Tony nomination. (In a funny aside: Edelman forgot his lines at the beginning of this song and asked the orchestra to begin again, jesting: “You know, I was nominated for a Tony, but I didn’t get it!”)

This was a busy and winning night for the BSO. The percussion and brass sections, in particular, were on their toes throughout, and captured that peculiarly brisk sound of Broadway.