‘¡Viva Maestro!’ Documentary Opening Today Explores Brilliant Conductor Gustavo Dudamel, “A Very, Very Rare Cat”
deadline.comNot since the late Leonard Bernstein has a conductor captured the imagination of the American public quite like Gustavo Dudamel.The Venezuelan-born phenom with the flashing baton and flying curls has been featured on 60 Minutes, profiled in The New Yorker, inspired a TV series (Mozart in the Jungle), and even been animated on The Simpsons (the surest sign of broad cultural penetration).
The music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and music director of the Paris Opera is the subject of a new documentary, ¡Viva Maestro!, opening today in New York (Film Forum) and L.A. (The Landmark Westside Pavilion).“This is a very, very rare cat — very, very special musician,” declares director Ted Braun. “It’s the quality of his music-making and that emotional vitality and transparency that he brings.
It’s just a magnet for musicians all over the world, from every walk of life and every genre and stripe and that then gets bounced out to audiences.
He’s exceptional that way. I think Bernstein is absolutely the last figure to have that kind of reach and range of popularity.”The documentary captures Dudamel’s extraordinary ability to communicate musical ideas to an orchestra, be it the L.A.
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