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There’s no doubting the sincerity of the Oregon Symphony’s tribute to composer Angelo Badalamenti and filmmaker David Lynch, collaborators since 1986 who died in January 2022 and 2025, respectively. The program—performed Wednesday, May 28, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall—was thoughtfully constructed, with the first set balancing the grand, romantic sweep of the score Badalamenti wrote for films like 2004’s A Very Long Engagement and 1989’s Cousins, with the darker visions he conceived for Lynch’s Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive.
But in and around that first half and throughout the second, the program tipped a little too hard into the cornball. Focusing entirely on the music from Twin Peaks, the stage was awkwardly set by singers Garrett Bond and Chrystabell as they acted out scenes as characters from the TV series visiting Portland with cringey references to the orchestra onstage and the world outside the Schnitz. The artlessness especially undercut the heartache that crept into the scene with Chrystabell who framed her breathy monologue as a letter to Gordon Cole, the character Lynch played in Twin Peaks.
The evening also unintentionally emphasized how great Lynch and Badalamenti were at finding beautiful, wholly distinctive voices to collaborate with. Bond, for example, was tasked with singing “Sycamore Trees,” a tune written for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and though the tenor comported himself nicely, there was no hope of him reaching the keening surreality of the song’s original interpreter, Little Jimmy Scott. So, too, was the fate of Paloma Dettloff, an undeniably talented soprano who took the stage to tackle an a cappella, Spanish language version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” The moment was meant to mirror a similar performance by Rebekah del Rio in Mulholland Drive, but lost nearly all the world-shaking agony in its modern-day translation.