Ravinia 2019, Issue 2, Week 3

7:30 PM THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2019 MARTIN THEATRE LEONARD BERNSTEIN’S SONGFEST A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers CAROGA ARTS ENSEMBLE † ALEXANDER PLATT, conductor VOCALISTS FROM RAVINIA’S STEANS MUSIC INSTITUTE ANTONINA CHEHOVSKA, soprano RAEHANN BRYCE-DAVIS, mezzo-soprano SARAH COIT, mezzo-soprano STEPHEN CARROLL, tenor EDWARD CLEARY, baritone RHYS LLOYD TALBOT, bass-baritone CHICAGO POETS Selected by The Poetry Foundation KEVIN COVAL † PATRICIA FRAZIER † JACOB SAENZ † BERNSTEIN Songfest (arr. Platt/Osborne) ( Poems to be read separately prior to each song ) Sextet 1. To the Poem (Frank O’Hara) Three Solos 2. The Pennycandystore Beyond the El (Lawrence Ferlinghetti) Edward Cleary 3. A Julia de Burgos (Julia de Burgos) Antonina Chehovska 4. To What You Said (Walt Whitman) Rhys Lloyd Talbot Three Ensembles 5. I, Too, Sing America (Langston Hughes) / Okay ‘Negroes’ (June Jordan) Edward Cleary / Raehann Bryce-Davis 6. To My Dear and Loving Husband (Anne Bradstreet) Antonina Chehovska; Raehann Bryce-Davis; Sarah Coit 7. Storyette H.M. (Gertrude Stein) Antonina Chehovska; Rhys Lloyd Talbot Sextet 8. if you can’t eat you got to (e.e. cummings) Three Solos 9. Music I Heard from You (Conrad Aiken) Sarah Coit 10. Zizi’s Lament (Gregory Corso) Stephen Carroll 11. What lips my lips have kissed (Edna St. Vincent Millay) Raehann Bryce-Davis Sextet 12. Israfel (Edgar Allan Poe) There will be no intermission in this program. † Ravinia debut Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Sponsor The Poetry Foundation . LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918–90) Songfest : A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers (arranged by Alexander Platt and Robert Osborne) The arrangement by Alexander Platt and Robert Osborne is scored for flute, oboe, and English horn, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, trombone, piano, electric keyboard, two percussionists, two violins, viola, cello, and bass with solo soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass- baritone vocalists. The Philadelphia Orchestra extended the initial commission for Songfest as part of its US Bicen- tennial celebrations in 1976. Facing a production deadline for his musical 1600 Pennsylvania Ave- nue (book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner), Bern- stein set aside the orchestral song cycle project. When he resumed composition, Songfest went to the National Symphony Orchestra, who gave the premiere at the Kennedy Center on Octo- ber 11, 1977. The vocal soloists on that occasion were Clamma Dale, Rosalind Elias, Nancy Williams, Neil Rosenshein, John Reardon, and Donald Graham—the same artists who record- ed the work a year later. Bernstein conducted Songfest on the second half of the concert, an “All-Bernstein” program attended by President Jimmy and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter. The concert also marked Mstislav Rostropovich’s first con- cert as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra. A most devastating personal crisis—one of his own creation—further contributed to the de- layed completion of Songfest . Bernstein had fallen in love with Tom Cothran, a young mu- sicologist hired as a “special student” at Harvard University to conduct research for Bernstein’s “Norton Lectures,” a few years earlier. Cothran was not his first male lover; there had been nu- merous liaisons since at least the mid-1930s. Felicia Montealegre, Bernstein’s wife since 1951 and the mother of their three children (Jamie, Alexander, and Nina), tolerated the affairs as long her husband remained discreet. With Co- thran, he did not. The two men traveled together throughout the US and Europe on Bernstein’s Bicentennial tour. Tension between Leonard and Felicia mounted during the week after the Fourth of July, reach- ing a breaking point at Alexander’s birthday on July 11. The next morning, Bernstein impulsively moved out of the family apartment and rented a house in California with Cothran. The interna- tional press eventually caught wind of the Bern- steins’ separation. Leonard continued to live and travel with Cothran until February 1977, when he returned to New York and sought reconcili- ation with Felicia. The guilt he suffered over the abandonment of his wife grew even more severe with Felicia’s devastating illness and eventual death from lung cancer in 1978. Bernstein and Cothran remained close friends until the latter’s death from AIDS in 1986. JUNE 17 – JUNE 23, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 95