Review Roundup: Amazon's MOZART IN THE JUNGLE, with Bernadette Peters & Gael Garcia Bernal

Amazon will premiere all ten episodes of the highly-anticipated dramatic comedy series MOZART IN THE JUNGLE tomorrow, Tuesday, December 23 on Prime Instant Video in the US, UK and Germany.

Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, Saffron Burrows, Hannah Dunne, Lola Kirke and Peter Vack, MOZART IN THE JUNGLE draws back the curtain at the New York Symphony, where artistic dedication and creativity collide with mind games, politicking and survival instincts. The series also features Malcolm McDowell and Broadway star Bernadette Peters.

Based on the critically acclaimed memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs & Classical Music by Blair Tindall, MOZART IN THE JUNGLE is seen through the eyes of a young oboist, Hailey (Kirke), who tries to navigate through the egos and eccentricities of a world renowned orchestra, and new conductor Rodrigo (Bernal), an enfant terrible whose passion for music threatens the plans of the orchestra's old guard. That old guard is represented by Thomas (McDowell), the reluctantly outgoing conductor, and Gloria (Peters), the chairwoman of the board, who wonder what they have wrought by bringing Rodrigo into the fold. The musicians themselves, a colorful family of disparate personalities, are struggling to deal with this new regime. Along with her friends Alex (played by Vack), a dancer on the brink of success, Cynthia (Burrows), a worldly cellist, and Lizzie (played by Dunne), a world class partier, Hailey searches for what it means to dedicate your life to music.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Mike Hale, The New York Times: It's Amazon's second winner in a row...at times, it feels like a smarter, less melodramatic version of a backstage series like "Smash" (or a less over-the-top version of a superior backstage story like "Slings and Arrows"). Its mix of uptown and downtown Manhattan locations and its satire of upper-crust cultural pretensions recall "Sex and the City."

Ken Tucker, Yahoo! TV: It takes a little while to find its rhythm, but Mozart in the Jungle turns out to be one of the better shows Amazon Studios has placed in its stream. Set in the world of a fictional New York symphony orchestra, Mozart stars Gael García Bernal as a sweet-tempered rebel conductor, hired to boost attendance and charm wealthy donors...The stand-out in this crowd, however, is Bernadette Peters as Gloria, the symphony president. Peters is so beguiling, it makes you wonder yet again why no one's ever been able to build a hit TV series around her.

Erik Adams, A.V. Club: Mozart In The Jungle depicts a symphony of characters and voices, its binge-ready structure illuminating through-lines for even the most minor players in the ensemble. In this sense, the latest series from Amazon Studios is a bit like an American counterpart to the Canadian dramedy Slings And Arrows, in which classical composers sub in for Shakespeare and the sage Stephen Ouimette figure isn't dead. Though he might as well be, given the way Malcolm McDowell's seasoned Mozart In The Jungle conductor is rushed out of the spotlight in favor of Rodrigo D'Souza, the rock-star maestro portrayed by Gael García Bernal. Mozart is an ensemble show, but the eccentricities of his character and the intensity of his performance draw plenty of attention to Bernal, a firebrand seeking to shake up a cultural institution sinking into irrelevancy.

Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter: Based on the acclaimed memoir, Mozart In the Jungle: Sex, Drugs & Classical Music by Blair Tindall, the series is a refreshing situational mix of earnest music, slow-building drama, solid humor and, yes, sex. What makes Mozart stand out immediately is the setting -- and not just New York, which is the backdrop -- but the world of classical musicians and their often hardscrabble life, even at the elite level. Mozart is set at the New York symphony orchestra in the midst of a transition...Though the pilot is a bit on the wild side when it comes to Cynthia and ends up more whimsical overall than the series eventually becomes, it sets the hook for discovering an institution barely covered in television...Enough can't be said about how much Bernal infuses the quirky Rodrigo and becomes the driving force in this series...Bernal is both likable and magnetic and makes the eclectic maestro surge on the screen. He alone is worth streaming the series but, thankfully, there's a lot more going on here...Mozart allows Peters to act, instead of play a diva tearing through scenery, and that also grounds this series.

Pilot Viruet, Flavorwire: Mozart in the Jungle has fancy names behind it (Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, Alex Timbers, and Paul Weitz) and an ambitious concept: loosely adapted from the novel Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classic Musical, by Blair Tindall, the series goes behind the scenes of the pill-popping, competitive, cripplingly anxious, occasionally silly but often distressing orchestra world. But what those promising elements suggest, mostly, is that the show could be so much better, especially with all that it already has going for it...Mozart in the Jungle is full of beautiful people in a beautiful world, but at times, toward the beginning, this can feel like the only thing the show is about: the superficiality and egotism of it all. Like all of Amazon Studios' new series, Mozart is made to feel more like a movie than a television show, but it's too scattered...

Robert Bianco, USA Today: On the heels of Transparent, Amazon ends the year with Mozart in the Jungle (Tuesday, ***½ stars out of four), yet another terrifically offbeat and off-the-beaten-path comedy, sparked by another great, career-shifting central performance - this time from Gael Garcia Bernal as the charismatic new conductor of the fictional New York Symphony.

Kory Grow, Rolling Stone: Thanks to quirky scripts and a smart ensemble cast - which includes Gael García Bernal as the Symphony's young-buck new conductor Rodrigo, Malcolm McDowell as its outgoing maestro Thomas Pembridge and Broadway legend Bernadette Peters as the Symphony's manager, Gloria Windsor - it comes off whimsical without ringing off-pitch.

Brian Lowry, Variety: Buoyed by superb casting and an organic setting for flamboyant, larger-than-life characters, "Mozart in the Jungle" may not qualify as a masterpiece, but it falls squarely into the pleasant-addition-to-the-neighborhood category in Amazon's impressive package of original series. Indeed, on a conventional network, this half-hour show - whose producers include Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman - would feel like the perfect lead-out to "Alpha House," the streamer's D.C.-set comedy, which also provides a satirical window onto a world of money, power and egos that operates by its own arcane set of rules.

Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly: The latest talent-rich, lo-fi binge from Amazon Studios falls far short of the high notes hit by the upstart TV player's sublime dramedy Transparent, but it's pleasing enough to hold you. Gael García Bernal charms as Rodrigo, a charismatic conductor with a rock-star image and a poet's soul recruited to recharge the New York Symphony. His platonic (for now?) relationship with aspiring oboist Hailey (Lola Kirke), whom he hires as an assistant, is endearing, and by the standout seventh episode, you'll be hooked on their rapport and keen to see how they change each other over time.

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