Ravinia 2019, Issue 6, Week 12

JAMES GAFFIGAN, conductor The winner of the Sir Georg Solti International Competition in 2004, James Gaffigan was then in the midst of a 2003–6 tenure as assistant con- ductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst. He was subsequently appointed associate conductor of the San Francisco Sym- phony under Michael Tilson Thomas, a position created specifically for him that he held until 2009. Gaffigan first led the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra as a guest conductor in 2008, and soon after concluding his tenure in San Francis- co, he was named the orchestra’s chief conductor and has inhabited the position since 2011. Hav- ing made a significant impact on the orchestra’s international profile with several highly suc- cessful recordings and tours—including its first performances in the United States at Ravinia in 2017—his contract has been extended through 2022. He also ascended to the post of principal guest conductor of the Netherlands Radio Phil- harmonic Orchestra in 2011, and that relation- ship has recently been extended through 2023. In addition to holding those titled positions, Gaffigan is widely in demand among leading orchestras and opera houses as a guest conduc- tor. This past season he made debuts with the Metropolitan Opera and Dutch National Opera leading productions of Puccini’s La bohème and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess , as well as with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and he re- turned to the podiums of the Los Angeles Phil- harmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and (US) National, BBC, and Melbourne Symphony Or- chestras. He also returned to the Bavarian State Opera to lead Puccini’s La fanciulla del West and Mozart’s Don Giovanni and San Francisco Op- era for Bizet’s Carmen . Gaffigan’s recent high- lights include his concert debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and returns to the New York and Munich Philharmonics, Cleve- land and Philadelphia Orchestras, and Chicago, Cincinnati, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. On the theater stage, he recently made debuts with Lyric Opera of Chicago and Santa Fe Op- era, leading Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos , and he has led several pro- ductions for Vienna State Opera and the Glyn- debourne Festival. James Gaffigan is making his first return to Ravinia following his 2017 debut. found the composition substandard. In a letter to Fels on November 13, Meiff wrote, “The tech- nical embellishments are very far from the re- quirements of a modern violinist, and this state- ment is very mild, because some of the parts are childish in details, again from a violinist’s standpoint. … The composition needs immedi- ate modification from a specialist. Otherwise a performer will pay too great a price for it.” The final movement followed in late November, but it failed to satisfy Briselli, who requested a rewrite and offered specific suggestions for im- provement, all of which Barber rejected. Despite claims by several sources, Briselli did not find the finale excessively difficult—to demonstrate its technical practicality, Herbert Baumel, a Cur- tis student, performed the finale admirably after only two hours of practice—although somewhat unviolinistic, its character was dissimilar from the other two movements and too challenging to memorize before the scheduled premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy on January 19 and 20, 1940. Briselli performed Dvořák’s Violin Voncerto on that occasion and returned the commissioned concerto to Barber. American violinist Albert Spalding gave the pre- miere on February 7 and 8, 1941, with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Barber retained the first $500 installment for the commission but never collected or even requested the sec- ond payment after Briselli rejected the concerto. Thereafter, Barber dubbed this composition the “concerto del sapone” or “soap concerto” after Fels’s business enterprise. Lyricism and an unconventional intimacy of character, resulting from the modestly scaled orchestration, emerge in the very first measure. There is no orchestral introduction as in Classi- cal-style concertos; the solo violin enters imme- diately. An underlying tranquility, initially con- veyed by the oboe, spills over into the Andante . The solo violin enters only with the second theme. In the perpetual-motion finale, Barber challenges the soloist to a musical marathon: 176 measures of virtually nonstop playing. LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918–90) Symphonic Dances fromWest Side Story Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, one E-flat, two B-flat and bass clarinets, alto saxophone, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, a battery of percussion, xylophone, vibraphone, celeste, chimes, harp, piano, and strings West Side Story began as the brainchild of writer Arthur Laurents, choreographer Jerome Rob- bins, and composer Leonard Bernstein. Robbins proposed a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in a modern, slum setting during Easter/Passover with a violent conflict between Catholics and Jews. However, a strug- gle along religious lines quickly lost its appeal. The three men dropped the idea and went their separate ways. This was 1949. Six years later, the Romeo and Juliet idea re- surfaced during a poolside conversation at the Beverly Hills Hotel. In the aftermath of gang warfare in the Mexican community, Laurents and Bernstein introduced a new spin: a clash between Hispanic and Anglo gangs. Laurents then suggested “the blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York, because this was the time of the ap- pearance there of teenage gangs, and the prob- lem of juvenile delinquency was very much in the news. It started to work.” Lyricist Stephen Sondheim, the final member of the creative team, joined in 1955. The plot continued to evolve. Several permutations of the title reflect- ed changes in geography and emphasis: first East Side Story , then Gangway! , and finally the fin- ger-snapping West Side Story . The show opened on August 19, 1957, at the National Theatre in Washington, DC, on September 26 moving to Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater, where it ran for 732 performances. Direct parallels with Romeo and Juliet abound. Two battling factions suggest the Capulets and Montagues. A generic Anglo gang, the Jets, defends its turf against the influx of Hispanic youths, the Sharks. The tragic lovers Maria (Ju- liet), a Puerto Rican girl, and Tony (Romeo), a member of the Jets, meet and fall in love at a school dance (the ball). Bernardo (Tybalt), Ma- ria’s brother, kills Tony’s best friend, Riff (Mercu- tio). Tony exacts revenge by murdering Bernar- do. In the end, Tony dies in Maria’s arms. West Side Story was nominated for a Tony Award, but lost to Meredith Willson’s The Music Man . A film adaptation appeared in 1961, winning 10 Oscars, including for Best Picture. That same year, Bernstein compiled the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story with orchestration assis- tance from Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, both of whom enjoyed successful careers arranging and orchestrating for stage and film. –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan Leonard Bernstein RAVINIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 19 – AUGUST 25, 2019 92