Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 7

MARIN ALSOP, conductor The first-ever “music curator” at Ravinia, Marin Alsop is overseeing the festival’s multi-year celebration of Leonard Bernstein, this sum- mer including three concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Ravinia’s first staging of Trouble in Tahiti . She began her profession- al education at The Juilliard School, where she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, and Yale University, which awarded her an hon- orary doctorate in 2017; her career was launched in 1989 when she became the first woman to be awarded the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize from the Tanglewood, where she became Ber- nstein’s first female and final protégé. She is also the only conductor to have been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and Royal Phil- harmonic Society, and was recently appointed the director of graduate conducting at the Pea- body Institute of Johns Hopkins University. In addition to her role at Ravinia, Alsop is central to Bernstein celebrations with the London Sym- phony Orchestra, with which she has a close and long-standing relationship, and the Southbank Centre, where she is an artist-in-residence. She has been music director of the Baltimore Sym- phony Orchestra since 2007 and is tenured until 2021, having had success not only with the en- semble but also with her OrchKids youth music initiative and the BSO Academy and Rusty Mu- sicians adult program. She has also been prin- cipal conductor and music director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra since 2012, leading the ensemble on three extensive European tours to date, and will become chief conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra this fall. In addition to regular engagements with the CSO and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, Alsop frequently conducts such Eu- ropean ensembles as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, and London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. Her extensive discog- raphy has earned multiple Gramophone Awards and includes acclaimed Brahms, Dvořák, and Prokofiev cycles on Naxos and further record- ings on Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Sony Classical. Marin Alsop made her Ravinia and CSO debuts in 2002 and is in the midst of her sixth season appearance at the festival. PAULO SZOT, baritone Born in São Paulo to Polish immigrants, baritone Paulo Szot has earned international acclaim as both an opera singer and actor, having appeared with numerous major opera companies in Eu- rope, the United States, and his native Brazil. In 2008, he starred as Emile De Beque in the Broad- way revival of South Pacific and became the first Brazilian to win Best Actor honors at each of the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theater World Awards. Over the past year, Szot has starred as Juan Perón in Evita with Opera Australia and Count Danilo in Lehár’s The Merry Widow at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, and this fall he will appear as Sharpless in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Met. Last season he portrayed Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte with Par- is National Opera, Count Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with Michigan Opera Theatre, and Frank Mourrant in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene at Madrid’s Teatro Real, as well as the Celebrant in Bernstein’s Mass in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Recent high- lights have included creating the roles of Alex- ander Hamilton, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney in Mohammed Fairouz’s The New Prince with Dutch National Opera, appearing on the New York Philharmonic’s televised New Year’s Eve gala with Alan Gilbert and Joyce DiDonato, and giving a solo recital at Madrid’s Teatro Real salut- ing Frank Sinatra’s recordings of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s bossa novas. Szot’s credits also include Lescaut in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (Theatro Municipal de São Paulo) and Massenet’s Manon (Metropolitan Opera); Dr. Falke in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus , the Captain in John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer , and Kovalev in Shostakov- ich’s The Nose (Metropolitan Opera); Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen (Glyndebourne Festival, Met- ropolitan Opera, and San Francisco Opera); the title roles of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (Opera Australia) and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Wash- ington National Opera and Dallas Opera); and Filippov in Alexander Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart (La Scala). Paulo Szot made his Ravinia and CSO debuts last season and will return to the festival next week and in August for further celebrations of Bernstein’s music. ANDRES ACOSTA Praised for his lyric voice, Cuban American tenor Andres Acosta continues to stand out through his strong vo- cal presence and mag- netic acting. Following his present Ravinia debut in Bernstein’s Mass , Acosta will reprise the role of Arcadio in Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas in his Pitts- burgh Opera debut, make his Houston Grand Opera debut as Father Matias in the alternate cast of Javier Martínez’s El Milagro del Recuerdo , reprise the role of Timothy Laughlin in Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers in his Madison Opera debut, and return to Minnesota Opera as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni . Acosta’s re- cent credits include his highly acclaimed por- trayal of Timothy Laughlin in Minnesota Op- era’s production of Fellow Travelers , as well as covering and performing Duca in Verdi’s Rigo- letto , Gennaro in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia , Nicias in Massenet’s Thaïs , and Ernesto in Doni- zetti’s Don Pasquale as a young artist with San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program and Minne- sota Opera. Instagram @andres.acosta.tenor HADLEIGH ADAMS New Zealand baritone Hadleigh Adams is a dedicated performer of opera, concert, and crossover works. Fol- lowing studies at Lon- don’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he trained with San Fran- cisco Opera in its Merola Program and as an Adler Fellow. Adams made his professional de- but at London’s Royal National Theatre as Christ in a staging of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, and he has since frequently performed with San Francisco Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony. In recent seasons he has made debuts with American Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, and Minnesota Opera, as well as the American Bach Soloists, Philhar- monia Baroque Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He gave a breakout performance in West Edge Opera’s production of Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face , and last month he returned to Cincinnati Opera as Mercutio in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette . www.hadleighadams.com JULY 15 – JULY 21, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 95