Vanessa Williams hosted a live simulcast of the LA Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel.

The first live-concert video simulcast of the Los Angeles Philharmonic beamed some Hollywood-style glitz to frozen Minnesota on Sunday afternoon. The orchestra's twentysomething music director Gustavo Dudamel led a concert of John Adams (the fast-and-furious "Slonimsky's Earbox"), Leonard Bernstein (the powerful, stirring First Symphony, "Jeremiah") and Beethoven (the rhythmic Symphony No. 7) from the Frank Gehry-designed concert hall in downtown L.A. It was beamed live to a handful of movie theaters in the Twin Cities metro area, including a Block E theater, where I saw it along with eight others.

Another attendee reported that the Showplace Icon theater in St. Louis Park was about one-third full. Event organizers declined to release any attendance figures for other theaters. The glitz came mainly in the form of event host Vanessa Williams, the Grammy winning songster, actor and 1984 Miss America. Williams, in strapless dress and tons of makeup, did breathless interviews with Dudamel at intermission. Williams also spoke with former Minnesota Orchestra president Deb Borda, who now has that job at the LA Phil. Dudamel lived up to his reputation for joyous energy and ebullience, bursting forth with backstage soundbites about his passion for the music being performed.

Deb Borda, president of the LA Philharmonic The Venezuelan prodigy bears an odd resemblance to satirist Fran Lebowitz, but with a demeanor nearly opposite to her severe wit and sarcastic humor. The speed and rhythm of Beethoven's Seventh, for instance, makes Dudamel think of "love bubbles, like champagne!" Experiencing a concert in this format is a revelation for someone accustomed to sitting in the concert hall and seeing the back of the conductor and maybe the first row or two of string players. With video cameras positioned all around the orchestra, we can see a timpanist banging his drums so hard that his white bowtie gets slightly crooked. And what about the bass player who forgot to comb the back of his hair? In one great scene, mezzo soprano Kelley O'Connor is seen singing the final movement of the Bernstein. There, just behind her, sits a middle-aged oboist with what appears to be a cigarette hanging from her mouth. Turns out she's keeeping her instrument's slender reed moist. I thought the sound and video quality were excellent, even if camera operators soon ran out of tricks to try and make a symphony orchestra visually captivating.

Kelley O'Connor sang with the LA Philharmonic in Leonard Bernstein's First Symphony. For a good post from blogger Thomas Huizenga, which includes a dispatch from public-radio producer Vaughn Ormseth, who saw the show in St. Louis Park, go here. Did you attend any of the screenings, in the Twin Cities or elsewhere? If so, please add your comments to this post. Thanks. The LA Phil concert series continues with simulcasts in March and June. For information, go to www.fathomevents.com. Tickets are $20.