The theme of the Boston Pops’ spring season is “Summer of ’69,” but there was just one specific event from that year that seemed to capture the orchestra’s imagination on Tuesday: the Apollo 11 mission that put humankind onto the surface of the moon. And while the actual moon may have been merely waxing gibbous in the sky, it was bright and full throughout Symphony Hall.
Things began with the iconic cosmic ascent of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” while “Daybreak,” from Ravel’s “Daphnis Et Chloé,” proved a fine companion: rising slowly but inexorably pushing forward, with the strings growing broader and richer bit by bit. (Still photos of the moon from various vantage points were shown to ensure that the point was made.)
Two digressions followed — John Williams’s “The 1960’s: The Turbulent Years,” with insistent, fractured tympani pounding fueling a piece with chaos brimming just beneath the surface, and National Youth Poet Laureate (and Harvard junior) Amanda Gorman delivering her “The Believer’s Hymn of the Republic” — before David Bowie’s weightless, expansive “Space Oddity” turned once more to thoughts of the moon (and “2001: A Space Odyssey”). James Beckel’s multimedia piece “From The Earth to the Moon and Beyond” also hung in the shadow of “2001,” with its yearning bends of low strings and high woodwind drone, before blossoming into heart-bursting wonderment as astronaut (and Wellesley College/MIT alum) Pamela Melroy narrated with cheery excitement at humanity’s grasping at the universe.
After intermission, Emmy winner Jane Lynch (on the first of two nights) changed venues from Tranquility Base to the Vegas Strip. Introduced by her pianist and “Glee” compatriot Brad Ellis as “a tall woman but worth the climb,” she careened onstage to the brassy strains of “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer” and proceeded to deliver a cheerfully old-fashioned set falling somewhere between the Rat Pack and Lawrence Welk. Per “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”-referencing title — “Jane Lynch Sings The American Songbook* (*Plus One Guatemalan Love Song)” — she had jokes aplenty and sang explicitly comedic songs like “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” and the beatnik pick-up of “Slappin’ the Cakes on Me” with gusto.
But she also knew when to rein it in and respect the material. “Mambo Italiano” was goofy but reverent, and she seemed to have a special affection for supper-club jazz on songs like Irving Berlin’s “Mr. Monotony” and the fingersnapping “King of the Road.” And on a heartbreak medley anchored by “Miss Otis Regrets,” the glad-handing smile in the back of Lynch’s throat went away, revealing a fine instrument of ache and pain. Ever the entertainer, she followed up with a James Brown tribute before requesting her own encore and sharing “I Got It From Agnes” with Ellis, Tom Lehrer’s jaunty, wickedly sharp STI joke filling Symphony Hall at long last.
The Boston Pops
With Jane Lynch
At Symphony Hall, Tuesday
Marc Hirsh can be reached at officialmarc@gmail.com or on Twitter @spacecitymarc.