“Montreal symphony plays straight man for comedian”
The Leader-
MONTREAL (CP) – The Montreal Symphony Orchestra played straight man Friday as veteran comedian Danny Kaye turned the normally serious business of making classical music into standup comedy.
The audience at Place des Arts loved Kaye’s combination of humor and music, but with the emphasis more heavily on the humor side of the proceedings, the orchestra’s musical director, Charles Dutoit, needn’t worry about losing his job.
Kaye, a professional entertainer for more than 40 years, knows his business well. He had the audience in his lap from the moment his yells could be heard—if not understood—from the side of the stage while the musicians and the crowd awaited his appearance.
No matter how hoary Kaye’s humor—the first time he waved his baton he
sent it flying into the orchestra—the blue-
When he actually got around to conducting, Kaye interspersed virtually every number with shrieks and whoops. “God, that’s wonderful,” he yelled after successfully part of one overture.
Orchestra members—who know which side their pay cheque is buttered on—entered into the spirit of the evening with gusto.
Concert master Richard Roberts normally a fairly sedate soul, seemed to enjoy being singled out by Kaye for special attention. At one point the comic, pretending to be “a conductor who should have retired 100 years ago,” paused on his shaky way to the podium to sit in Roberts’ lap.
Later, when one of the violins had failed to respond to Kaye’s cue, the
comic screamed at Roberts: “Call yourself a concert master.” Roberts was then led,
shame-
Roberts, not Kaye, reappeared, to the crowd’s delight.
At 70, Kaye still seems to have boundless energy. And his humor, while
rarely straying from middle-