Sir Andrew Davis, going great guns at the Lyric Opera of Chicago until at least 2021, has since January last year also been the Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (founded in 1906). They arrived at the Proms with a very popular programme – everyday music that is played by everyone, so it was Aussie hats being thrown into the international arena – if with not a note of anything home-grown.
The concert opened with Richard Strauss’s Don Juan, a dashing outing for the roué, full of vim, vigour and all-important seduction. In the mould of Kempe, Reiner and Szell, if without quite emulating their incisiveness and seamlessness, Davis bundled the music along infectiously allied to textural clarity (the harp unusually clear), the slower music glowing with lechery and kept potent, and if the MSO is not the most homogenised of ensembles (maybe that’s a plus) and also prone to the odd mistune, then such edginess brought its own rewards and Jeffrey Crellin’s contribution on oboe was full of character with much tender wooing ... a Don that bodes well for this team’s Strauss series just launched on ABC Classics.