Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

André had told me that Penelope was about 37 minutes long, but at our first rehearsal we dis- covered that it was nearly an hour, and that Renée had far more sung text than her previous conversations with André had suggested she would have. They had conceived of Renée shar- ing the text with an actor, who would read some of Penelope’s lines as well as many of those as- signed to others. Luckily, she had her own libret- to with sections marked “spoken” and “sung.” I immediately recognized much of the music An- dré had set was marked “spoken.” So I went back to the manuscript. I replaced many of the sung parts with the oth- er pages I had found with text that was spoken. Some of these parts were accompanied by the quartet or piano, and some were just spoken. (At one point in the manuscript André had written “too long, no acc.”) I was pleased to do this, as some of the set text had rather weak accompa- niment that seemed more like André’s sketches than his finished product. It was as if André was playing around with things he knew wouldn’t be set and, in some of them (none that I used), there were even other orchestral instruments written in. I’ll bet he was hearing a full orches- tration of the work in the future. I sent the new score to Renée and Gene, and they sent back suggestions for some further nips and tucks, which I gladly considered and mostly used. Last, I gave Penelope the dedica- tion I know André would have used: to Renée . It’s been such a pleasure, if a melancholy one, to see this through with Renée, Gene, Simone, and the others. We present to you the final realization of Penelo- pe , with music by André Previn and text by Tom Stoppard. –Program note by David Fetherolf RENÉE FLEMING, soprano One of the most acclaimed singers of our time, in 2013 soprano Renée Fleming was awarded America’s highest honor for an artist, the Na- tional Medal of Arts, by President Obama. The following year, she brought her voice to a vast new audience as the only classical artist ever to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. A four-time Grammy Award winner, most recent- ly for Best Classical Vocal Solo in 2013, Fleming has sung at numerous momentous occasions, from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II. And in 2008 she became the first woman in the history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline its opening-night gala. Fleming earned a Tony Award nomination for her performance in the 2018 Broadway production of Carousel , and this summer she made her London musical theater debut in The Light in the Piazza at Roy- al Festival Hall. Her recent tour schedule has also included concerts in New York, Chicago, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, and Beijing. She can also be heard on the soundtracks of 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri , and she provided the singing voice of Roxane, played by Julianne Moore, in the film Bel Canto . Fleming has recorded every- thing from complete operas and song recitals to indie rock and jazz. Her latest album, Renée Fleming: Broadway (2018), is a collection of mu- sical theater songs from the 1920s to the present, and her 1997 disc Signatures has been entered into the National Recording Registry by the Li- brary of Congress. Fleming has also been hon- ored with the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, Germany’s Cross of the Order of Merit, and France’s Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. Beyond the performance stage, she serves as both Artistic Advisor to the Kennedy Center and Creative Consultant to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and is on the board of trustees of Carn- egie Hall. Renée Fleming is making her seventh season appearance at Ravinia, where she first performed in 1994. EMERSON STRING QUARTET Formed in 1976, the Emerson String Quar- tet took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer alternate in the first-chair position and are joined by violist Lawrence Dutton and cellist Paul Watkins, who in 2013 became the quartet’s first new member since 1979. The ESQ was the first chamber en- semble to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 2004, was named Musical America ’s Ensem- ble of the Year in 2000, and has been given honorary doctorates by Middlebury, Wooster, and Bard Colleges, as well as the University of Hartford. Most recently the quartet was hon- ored with the Richard J. Bogomolny National Service Award from Chamber Music America. The ensemble has been quartet-in-residence at Stony Brook University since 2002 and is in its 40th season of residence at the Smithsonian Institution. During its years recording for Deut- sche Grammophon, the ESQ won nine Gram- my and three Gramophone Awards for albums that included the complete quartets by Bartók, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and Mendelssohn, as well as chamber works by Janáček and Martinů; quartets by Grieg, Nielsen, and Sibelius; and Mendelssohn’s Octet. Other notable recordings include Schubert’s String Quintet with cel- list Mstislav Rostropovich, Schumann’s Piano Quintet and Quartet with Menahem Pressler, Webern’s complete string works, Barber’s Do- ver Beach with baritone Thomas Hampson, and quartets by Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, and Prokofiev, many of which received award nominations. The quartet’s latest albums include a double disc encapsulating its 2018 tour with pianist Evgeny Kissin and the first release by Universal’s new US classical label, Decca Gold, entirely featuring works never before recorded by the ESQ: Brit- ten’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 and a selec- tion of chaconnes and fantasies by Purcell. The Emerson String Quartet made its Ravinia debut in 1985 and returns tonight for its 25th season at the festival. JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 117