Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

Just as no single area of musical endeavor was big enough for the larger-than-life talents and ambition of Leonard Bernstein, so, too, is no single Ravinia season big enough to represent America’s greatest musical gure in all his multifaceted glory. Indeed, the oodtide of events with which Ravinia celebrated Bernstein’s th birthday in was only the beginning. e grand celebration continues for a second festival summer with nearly a dozen Bernstein-themed programs curated by the American conductor Marin Al- sop, Bernstein’s nal (and only female) protégé and one of the world’s most prominent champions of his music. As composer, conductor, pianist, educator, television personality, advocate, social activist and cultural icon, Bernstein bestrode many worlds, many personae, many musical genres. His mastery in every realm was staggering. Ravinia is honoring the many Bernsteins in all three of its concert venues as well as in its newly constructed RaviniaMusicBox Experience Center. e maestro, it is safe to assume, would have been delighted by the attention. As Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kau man ex- plains, “Marin and I had a hunch that last year’s centennial celebration would be big for Ravinia, and it was. We were always thinking of making this a multiyear celebration, and the excitement generated by our ‘Bernstein ’ events told us we were headed in the right direction.” For her part, Alsop says, “Welz believes Ravinia is a festival about all types of music, for all people. at [inclu- siveness] also is what Bernstein stood for—the idea that you can cross over from serious to popular music, back and forth, seamlessly; that it’s all part of a single entity every audience member should be able to access.” Bernstein, she points out, ercely opposed the attempts of others to pigeonhole him or his music, which critics persisted in doing while he was alive (he died, at , in ). “I would say that every one of his popular pieces is very serious, and every one of his serious pieces is also popular,” Alsop observes. If Ravinia’s centennial homage emphasized Bern- stein’s works for the concert hall, the second edition pays extended homage to him as a composer for the theater. Understanding his theatricality is key to our understanding of Bernstein, given the fact that it coursed in his veins like red corpuscles, making him e ectively the star player on his own stage. In fact, practically everything he composed, con- ducted, performed, authored, or broadcasted into America’s living rooms carried the smell of greasepaint—even if the music at hand had nothing to do with the theater. Back by popular demand on July will be Bernstein’s magnum opus, the theater piece Mass, featuring the same forces—more than artists onstage—that made this unabashedly eclectic piece the cornerstone of last summer’s Bernstein bash. e roster includes the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Vocality chorus and Chicago Children’s Choir, the Highland Park High School March- ing Band, a -member “Street Chorus,” and baritone Paulo Szot (as the Celebrant), again under the direction of Alsop, who led last summer’s triumphant Ravinia and CSO premiere of Mass. “We usually don’t encore anything at Ravinia, but Mass was such a success, on so many levels, that this felt like something special to make happen again, especially given its acclaim by our North Shore family,” says Kau - man. Alsop says she was greatly moved by the “extremely emotional response” of audience members and the CSO musicians alike to last summer’s ra er-raising perfor- mance of the work she emphatically believes is Bernstein’s “masterpiece.” at said, Mass has long had its detractors, as well as its adherents, among the public and press. Alsop urges all who were leery about experiencing this joyous, sprawling theater piece last year to attend the reprise with open ears and mind. “Mass really has gotten better over time, with our greater and vaster experience of di erent types of mu- sic,” she says. “More importantly, I think the message”— the crisis of faith at the heart of the work—“is as relevant today as it was in .” Apart from Mass, no classical event of Ravinia will pack the Pavilion stage with more humanity than the July performance of Gustav Mahler’s grandest work, Symphony No. (the so-called “Symphony of a ou- sand”). e concert under Alsop’s baton will recall the piv- otal role Bernstein played in launching the “Mahler boom” that secured the Austrian composer’s place in the postwar canon. Alongside the CSO and Chorus, Milwaukee Sym- phony Chorus, and Chicago Children’s Choir will be eight solo vocalists: Angela Meade, Leah Crocetto, Jeanine De Bique, Michelle DeYoung, Kelley O’Connor, Joseph Kaiser, Ryan Speedo Green, and Paulo Szot. e back-to-back programming of Mass and Mahler was deliberate. “I believe Mass was Bernstein’s Mahler Eight,” Alsop says. “Common to both pieces is a desire to answer the big existential question: ‘Why are we here?’ We are doing the works roughly a week apart, which hope- fully will enable us to shed light on these pieces listeners perhaps have not considered before.” Highlighting the August lineup will be Ravinia’s rst full presentations of Bernstein’s music theater gems Can- dide ( ) and Trouble in Tahiti ( ). Bernstein’s tune-laden, wryly satirical Broadway oper- etta Candide (whose sparkling overture remains a staple of the concert repertoire) will take the Pavilion stage on August as performed by e Knights under their con- ductor, Eric Jacobsen. e production, which originated PATRICK GIPSON/RAVINIA 10 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 15 – JULY 28, 2019