Ravinia 2019, Issue 6, Week 12

GEORGE LI, piano Born in Boston, Chinese-descended pianist George Li gave his first public performance at Boston’s Steinway Hall at age 10, and the follow- ing year he performed at Carnegie Hall for the PBS series From the Top . He has studied piano privately from age 4, and he is currently in his final year of the dual degree program of Har- vard University and the New England Conser- vatory under the guidance of Wha Kyung Byun. Li had already amassed several major awards when he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2016, including first prize in the 2010 Young Concert Artists International Auditions; the Gilmore Young Artist Prize in 2012, then its youngest recipient; the grand prize of the 2014 Concours International in Paris, as well as that competition’s Brahms, Schumann, and Audi- ence Prizes; and second prize at the 2015 Inter- national Tchaikovsky Competition. In 2011 he performed at a state dinner for President Obama and German chancellor Angela Merkel. Recent and upcoming concerto highlights include per- formances with the San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Sympho- ny, Lyon National Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, Rotterdam, and Saint Petersburg Philharmon- ics. Over the past year, Li made debuts with the London and Royal Liverpool Philharmonics and Montreal and Tokyo Symphony Orchestras, embarked on an 11-city recital tour of China, and was the soloist for the Russian National Orchestra’s US tour with Mikhail Pletnev. He frequently appears with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, including performances at the Paris Philharmonie, Luxembourg Phil- harmonie, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Graff- enegg Festival, and numerous venues through- out Russia. In recital, Li has been heard at such venues as Carnegie Hall, San Francisco’s Davies Hall, the Mariinsky Theatre, Munich’s Gasteig, the Louvre, and numerous halls in China, Japan, and Korea, as well as at the Edinburgh, Verbier, Ravinia, Aix-en-Provence, and Montreux Fes- tivals. An exclusive Warner Classics recording artist, he released his debut recital album—re- corded live in the Mariinsky Theatre—in 2017. George Li is making his first return to Ravinia following his 2016 debut. LUCERNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA JAMES GAFFIGAN, conductor Biographies and roster appear on pages 92–93. provides a bridge to the middle grouping of slower dance variations (12–18), which modulate through several keys. The composer’s Romantic lyrical outpouring climaxes in the familiar vari- ation 18, an inversion of the original melody. Pa- ganini-like virtuosity returns in the remaining variations (19–24), while the theme is restored to A minor. In variation 24, a final statement of the Dies irae is overpowered by the caprice mel- ody. Rachmaninoff caps off this virtuosic varia- tion with a humorous concluding gesture. SERGEI PROKOFIEV Romeo and Juliet Suite (assembled by James Gaffigan) Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets and cornet, three trombones, tuba, timpani, a battery of percussion, bells, harp, piano (or celesta), and strings The world learned of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Ju- liet ballet music years before the choreographed work reached the stage. An intriguing series of political maneuvers, assassinations, and can- celed productions in the Soviet Union delayed the balletic debut. Director Sergei Radlov first suggested the scenario to Prokofiev in late 1934 for a production at the Leningrad State Academ- ic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (formerly and today known as the Mariinsky Theatre). In De- cember 1934, the theater’s name changed to the Kirov State Academic Theatre after the assassi- nation of Sergei Kirov, head of the Communist Party in Leningrad. Radlov lost his position at the theater, and plans for a Leningrad produc- tion of the Romeo and Juliet ballet collapsed. By spring 1935, Prokofiev and the unflappable Radlov had arranged a contract with the Bol- shoy Theatre in Moscow. The two-man team ballooned to a handful of collaborators on the story line alone. Their unwieldy product was a five-act, 24-scene scenario. Progress on the score went with amazing swiftness in the quiet envi- rons of Polenovo. “The colony is very pleasant, the locale is picturesque, and all the inhabitants have some connection or other to the Bolshoy Theater,” Prokofiev reported. Sketches for the ballet—replete with a happy, non-Shakespear- ean ending (this “original” concept was revived at Bard SummerScape 2008)—evolved over a five-month period ending on September 8, 1935. The production, however, met an abrupt end when the Bolshoy canceled the premiere. With no immediate hopes of staging his bal- let, Prokofiev fashioned two orchestral suites, opp. 46bis and 46ter, of seven excerpts each in 1936. (Prokofiev arranged a third suite, op. 101, in 1946.) The long-frustrated staging of Romeo and Juliet occurred not in the Soviet Union, but in Brno, Czechoslovakia, at a performance by the Yugoslav National Ballet of Zagreb on De- cember 30, 1938. Just over a year later, the Kirov opened its memorable production with Galina Ulanova dancing the role of Juliet on January 11, 1940. Soviet Art acclaimed this production: “The success of Romeo and Juliet , a production of rare beauty, content, and interest, is not just an ordi- nary success for Leningrad ballet, it is a success for all of Soviet choreography, and a testament to its colossal creative and ideological growth.” The Kirov troupe took its production to Mos- cow during the summer. Ulanova re-created her interpretation of the title role in a first perfor- mance by the Bolshoy on December 22, 1946. None of Prokofiev’s orchestral suites respects the dramatic sequence of his ballet. The composer arranged his first two suites more as self-con- tained symphonic works, with appropriate tempo and mood contrast. Prokofiev explained, “They do not follow each other consecutively; both suites develop parallel to each other. Some numbers were taken directly from the ballet without alteration, others were compiled from different sources within it.” The third suite was compiled out of the more chamber-like ballet numbers. Tonight’s conductor, James Gaffigan, has compiled his own suite from all three of Prokofiev’s orchestral suites. –Program notes © 2019 Todd E. Sullivan Galina Ulanova and Yury Zhdanov in Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (1940) RAVINIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 19 – AUGUST 25, 2019 96