Ravinia 2022, Issue 5

KYLE DUNLEAVY (AUDIENCE); PATRICK GIPSON (DE COU) Above: The annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular has been long been one of the most popular and family-friendly concerts at Ravinia, even more so in recent years with musical activities at the KidsLawn before the performance. It also gets the assistant conductor at every concert in on the action—not being an “instrument” that can simply be blown into or struck on cue, the cannons are controlled individually by the assistant, who accounts for their delay while timing them to the live performance. Left: Conductor Emil de Cou, who has led several Film with Orchestra and Broadway songbook concerts at Ravinia, takes up the Tchaikovsky concert on August 21. The overture “sweeps you up,” echoes CSO bassoonist Dennis Michel. “Tchaikovsky can create a melody like no one else, and the way one melody and one characterization leads into the next, it’s just so effective. It almost equally attracts somebody who’s a novice to classical music or a very discerning listener.” This particular year’s Tchaikovsky Spectacular marks a milestone for Michel, who will retire from the CSO after the performance. (Having played the overture with five different orches- tras over the course of his career, it’s an appropriate bookend.) But he looks forward to playing other Tchaikovsky pieces that evening, too. “Obviously, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is one of the most important pieces in the solo violin repertoire. It’s just an amazing piece, and not just as a vehicle for the soloist,” Michel says. “It’s much deeper than that. He gives the players in the orchestra really inter- esting things to do along the way. The music passes from orchestra to soloist and back again in very effective ways. It’s always a pleasure to play that piece.” Tchaikovsky’s Ukrainian Roots GIVEN THE DEADLY WAR of aggres- sion that Russia launched against Ukraine in February, orchestras around the world (and their audienc- es) have been questioning whether it’s appropriate, in 2022, to perform Russian music—particularly this signature Tchaikovsky piece, given that it celebrates a wartime victory. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Chubu Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan, and the Cleveland Orchestra have all recently abandoned plans to perform the 1812 Overture. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Michel admits. “Is it an appropri- ate time to play a piece that is basical- ly a hymn to Russian nationalism? But in the situation that it celebrates, the roles were reversed: Russia was being attacked by Napoleon’s forces and de- fended its sovereignty, as opposed to the war now, where Russia is reaching out and occupying another country. So it was a very different time and a very different war. I don’t think we can condemn this piece of music because of circumstances now.” Conductor de Cou co-signs that sentiment. Indeed, he argues against painting with too broad a brush, even as the rest of the world understand- ably judges Putin. “You can’t let such a horrible person co-opt a great genius who belongs to the world,” he says. And again, Tchaikovsky’s life story brings extra dimensions to the com- plicated debate. “A lot of people don’t know that his family was Ukrainian originally,” de Cou notes. Just a few generations back, the paternal sur- name was Chayka, which is Ukrainian for “seagull.” But when the family moved east, they Russified their name, going from Chayka to Chaykovsky. So it’s no surprise, de Cou says, that the musical titan always had very strong ties to his ancestral home. “He loved the Ukrainian people,” de Cou reports. “He was often at his sister’s house outside of Kyiv. One of his later operas premiered at the opera house in Kyiv. He actually had a home in Ukraine that was turned into a mu- seum and children’s music school that was [recently] bombed and destroyed. “Tchaikovsky would undoubted- ly loathe this horrible, murderous criminal in Moscow,” de Cou con- tinues. “I look at the end of the 1812 Overture not as the cannons defeating Napoleon, but as the Ukrainians de- feating this horrible monster. Hope- fully this horrible, senseless war will come to a rapid end, and Ukrainian people can live in democracy and peace.” Native Chicagoan Web Behrens has spent most of his journalism career covering arts and culture. His work has appeared in the pages of the Chicago Tribune , Time Out Chicago , Crain’s Chicago Business , and The Advocate and Chicago magazines. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • AUGUST 15 – AUGUST 28, 2022 20