Boston Pops Opening Night with Queen Latifah

Don't worry if the sidewalk outside of Symphony Hall appears to be shaking tonight around 10 pm. It's no earthquake; rather is just the reverberations caused by the audience inside the hall cheering Queen Latifah, the pop star who is performing with the opening night concerts of the 2017 season of the Boston Pops under the direction of Keith Lockhart.

She was nothing short of electrifying in the program's second half, in which she showed her assured versatility in various pop genres. At one moment she was a Big Band singer backed-up by the best cover band in the world; the next she was singing the blues, gospel, Broadway and rap. What makes it so remarkable is how effortlessly she moves between styles in a voice luminous in its sound and power. She appeared to top herself from song-to-song: plaintive one moment with the little known and powerful ballad "Georgia Rose," positively fierce the next with the bluesy "Mercy. Mercy. Mercy.," then dreamily ethereal in her cover of Phoebe Snow's hit "Poetry Man."

Throughout she had exemplary support from her on-stage combo and the Pops themselves, who also smoothly followed her moment-by-moment through her dynamic, often improvisational set. Just when you thought the song was over, she pushed her musicians on, as a great jazz artist should. Simply put, she was an amazing singer with an amazing band.

That band - the Boston Pops under the direction of Keith Lockhart - offered an orchestral program in the first half that honored the work of previous conductors Arthur Fiedler and John Williams. The two Russian pieces that opened the concert were reminiscent of the programming that Fiedler favored decades ago. The Tchaikovsky was an infectious fanfare written to honor the coronation of a czar that Lockhart played to the hilt. Next came sections from Rimsky-Korsakov's tone poem "Scheherazade," a programmatic piece that seemed like the musical equivalent of some 1950s Cinemascope spectacular.

Movies, specifically the scores of John Williams, finished off the program's first half. As Lockhart explained, this season is dedicated to the work of Williams, whom he called the most famous composer in the world, as he celebrates his 85th year. (Williams, who preceded Lockhart as Pops conductor, returns in a few weeks to conduct, with Lockhart, a program of his own work.) What was heard here was a mix of the familiar, the "Superman Theme" shown against a dizzying montage of the composer's film work over the past 50 years; and the unfamiliar: the rhapsodic main title to "The Towering Inferno" that highlighted his skills at orchestration; and the romantic main theme to "Sabrina," which featured evocative solo work by violinist Tamara Smirnova.

The first half ended with one of Williams' signature pieces - the "Flying Theme" from "E.T.," which was spectacularly played. Lockhart and orchestra will be showing the complete film with the orchestra playing the score this Friday and Saturday. If the playing on opening night is any indication, it will be magical.