The expression on the musicians sitting behind her says it all, no? Add the boredom in the audience's faces...she's doing what's referred to "Mickey Mousing" in opera directing terms. I can see her saying, "when the gregorian chant melody rises, it is reaching to heaven. Now listen, as it falls it is returning back to earth, a never-ending...."
(gosh, I hope melofluent didn't really, really like her presentation....)
She treats the orchestra like a machine that she can stop and start, Bobby gives the orchestra and the audience a role in the creation of the performance. And golly he is just so much fun and so talented!
I like to think of Gershwin in a matched set with Aaron Copland, the other Brooklyn Jewish kid of immigrant parents. While Gershwin captured the jazz-age cities, Copland defined a complementary "other" sound of America: from small towns and old times. It's a marvel.
What she does at the beginning of her concert is something I would like to see if I were watching a documentary. But if I'm at a live concert, please skip all those boring explanations and get to the music. When she tried to get cute by adding in "Singing in the Rain" it wasn't funny at all. Victor Borge would have done the same thing and had the audience bursting out in laughter. She only managed deadpan looks.
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