The Evening Sun
MEDIA MONITOR / Steve McKerrow
Tony Bennett opens new Wolf Trap
series
Given the fairly spectacular way Maryland Public Television handled its three-hour
live national broadcast of Baltimore’s New Year’s Eve celebration – not to mention MPT’s national Emmy Award in 1986 for “Wolf Trap
Presents the Kirov: Swan Lake”– this should be no surprise.
Still, it is hard to imagine how tonight’s
“Tony Bennett On Stage at Wolf Trap,” the season premiere of the performance series MPT produces from the Virginia performing arts
center, could be better. (It airs at 9 on Channels 22 and 67 and at 10 elsewhere on the PBS network.)
OK, fans of the pop singer who has been called the best in the business by some of his peers (such as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby)
might not hear a particular favorite from his repertoire.
But otherwise, the guy is just allowed to
do what he does best, and that is to sing; to sing with that strong, lyrical voice that has made him a star since Bob Hope took him
on tour for the first time in 1949 with Les Brown and his Band of Renown.
With Bennett backed up by
the Ralph Sharon Trio, featuring
Bennett is a very unphysical performer, not moving
much, so static camera shots would be boring to watch, however good the music. We expect from TV something to at least engage
the eye.
Thus an almost unnoticeable array of movements, such as slow zooms in and out, nicely placed
cuts from one camera to another and politely restrained shots of the audience provide just enough illusion of action to keep us watching
as well as listening.
The production even manages to showcase Bennett’s other art form: his painting
under his real name, Anthony Benedetto. As he sings “Stranger in
In one particularly impressive moment,
a painting of yellow taxi cabs on a
And yes, Bennett does sing “I Left My Heart in
Future shows this spring in the Wolf Trap series (all taped last year,
like the Bennett show) will showcase James Galway and the Chieftains, The Canadian Brass and Maureen McGovern.