LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Philharmonic was reunited with its priceless Stradivarius cello on Tuesday, three weeks after a clumsy thief stole it from the porch of the orchestra's principal cellist.
The cello, slightly damaged, narrowly escaped being turned into a compact disc case. It is now undergoing repairs and is expected to return to the stage of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in October.
"This is a great day for us," said a beaming Deborah Borda, president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association. "The cello and the orchestra are back together."
The instrument, built in the Cremona, Italy, workshop of Antonio Stradivari in 1684, is one of only 60 cellos made by Stradivari still extant and is insured for $3.5 million.
The cello was turned over to police on Saturday by Melanie Stevens, a 29-year-old nurse who said she found it, in its plastic case, on April 28, three days after it was stolen. She said she saw it leaning against a dumpster in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, a mile from where it was stolen. She told the police that a homeless man helped load it into her car.
She said that she had no idea at the time that the philharmonic was missing its irreplaceable cello.
Stevens asked her boyfriend, Igal Asseraf, a cabinetmaker, if he could repair the cracks and scratches in the instrument, said her lawyer, Ronald Hoffman. Asseraf agreed to try, but said that if he could not fix it he would hinge the top and turn it into a case for compact discs.
Borda said on Tuesday that she reacted with horror when she heard that.
"At least it wasn't a planter," she said.
Stevens stored the cello in a back bedroom until she saw a television report 10 days ago about the missing Stradivarius. She contacted a lawyer, who negotiated its surrender on Saturday. A $50,000 reward had been offered for the cello, but it was not immediately clear if Stevens was eligible for it.
The cello was taken April 25 from the front porch of Robert Stumpf, leader of the orchestra's cello section. He had inadvertently left the instrument outside, officials said. A security videotape caught the thief riding away on a bicycle, and records the sound of the bicycle colliding with trash cans.
Borda, accompanied by the orchestra's stringed instrument conservator, Robert Cauer, went to Los Angeles Police Department headquarters on Monday to identify the cello. Cauer immediately recognized the instrument, which he has tended for 20 years. He called the damage routine.
Stumpf, mortified, appeared briefly at the news conference announcing the retrieval on Tuesday. "I'm just incredibly relieved it's been solved and the cello has been returned," he said. "This has been an enormous weight on me for the last three weeks."