And so, Saturday, it came to pass. After all the extraordinary buildup — the billboards and the bilingual media frenzy — 18,000 people from every corner of the city came to the Hollywood Bowl to bear witness.
He goes by many names: Gustavo the Great. Gustavissimo. The Dude. Some have taken to referring to the new music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic by his initials, thus: G*D.
It’s all too much, we critics judiciously caution. But in his first return to the Hollywood Bowl since making his U.S. debut there in 2005, the Dude pulled it off. Joy reigned. On Saturday, Gustavo Dudamel concluded “¡Bienvenido Gustavo!” — the 28-year-old Venezuelan conductor’s first concert as the L.A. Philharmonic’s music director — with a Beethoven Ninth to be remembered.
This was not so much a Beethoven Ninth for the ages (he has a lot of competition), as it was a performance of Beethoven’s last and largest symphony, an iconic work of classical music with a cosmic scope and a call for universal brotherhood, for multicultural Los Angeles at this moment.
