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Table of Contents
PROGRAM NOTES
S U M M E R 2 0 1 8
gram featuring music from Italian
operas! It’s kind of like we’re getting a
picture of what he might be listening
to at home.
Many operas have been written
in the Italian language, including
by composers who weren’t Italian
themselves. That’s because opera was
first created in Italy, so the language
became closely tied to the style of
music. Because they were Italian
themselves, Gioachino Rossini and
Gaetano Donizetti naturally knew
how the make the words sound their
best, so their operas are among the
most famous still today. You might
have heard the music from Rossini’s
The Barber of Seville
or
William Tell
in cartoons, TV shows, or movies—
they’re very good for helping to
picture certain kinds of action. When
you hear the music, see if they cre-
ate any scenes in your mind on their
own!
Rossini was so popular a composer
of operas that people were shocked
when he retired in the middle of his
life, right after finishing
William Tell
.
But that made it possible for other
composers to get their chance to
shine. Donizetti immediately filled
Rossini’s shoes, and one of his biggest
hits was
Lucia di Lammermoor
, a story
about a girl and the challenges she
faces for loving a man whose family
has been feuding with hers for many,
many years—kind of like the story of
Romeo and Juliet! The three songs
from the opera on this concert will be
sung by Nadine Sierra, who studied
at Ravinia six years ago and has been
winning all sorts of awards recently,
and Matthew Polenzani, who grew
up not very far from Ravinia. It’s like a
little family reunion!
8:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 15
Pavilion
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Joshua Gersen,
conductor
Vertigo
If you liked the movies by Steven
Spielberg with music by John
Williams from earlier in August,
you might enjoy hearing tonight’s
movie too, because the director and
composer also made a lot of mov-
ies together. But it’s a very different
kind of story. The director, Alfred
Hitchcock, made movies that often
explored how people’s minds work.