|
Elvis Costello has long been respected for his musically adventurous spirit. During his sixteen-year recording career, he's tackled everything from country and blues to punk and lounge pop.
Still, when Costello recently released a collaborative disc with the classical string group, the Brodsky Quartet, eyebrows were raised. With this album, The Juliet Letters, the Englishman was not only risking embarrassment but accusations of cultural elitism.
At his recent Royce Hall show with the Brodsky Quartet, Costello seemed bent on diffusing any air of pretension. After all, it was fairly obvious that the large majority of those in attendance were pop fans rather than classical music lovers.
It's unlikely that Costello has ever been this genial and chatty onstage. He introduced most of the songs with insightful or amusing anecdotes. And to a large degree he succeeded in making a rather formal setting (he sang his lyrics from a book while standing amid the string quartet) seem more casual.
Costello also dramatized the songs by using sweeping arm gestures and exaggerated facial expressions. Sometimes this helped illuminate the songs, other times it was an annoying distraction. Depending on your perspective, the gesticulating singer either looked like a Shakespearean actor or a TV evangelist.
Costello and company performed the entire new album, a concept work written in the form of letters from an array of fictional characters, and like the album, the show was moving, boring and sometimes merely interesting. But it never appeared as if Costello was operating out of his stylistic league. Indeed, this music brought out an additional richness and range in his vocals.
The concert's only surprise came during its numerous encores. Standing out were a quasi-classical cover of the singer's early Eighties track, "Almost Blue," and a rather cheeky version of the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows."
The evening's most irritating aspect was the self-congratulatory way in which the audience roared its approval after nearly every turn. You would have thought that Costello had just invented classical music. A more likely explanation for this blind devotion was a crowd fearful of appearing like cultural plebeians.
| 
