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There’s always a risk
in trying something new or
unfamiliar. But that fear can be eased if the comfort of
someone or something well-known and loved is close at
hand—say, the famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti. Near the end
of the 1983 season, Ravinia and the Lyric Opera of Chicago
teamed up to host a joint benefit concert at the festival
featuring the company’s longtime principal conductor and
artistic director Bruno Bartoletti leading the Lyric Opera
Orchestra and that lone Italian of the (future) Three Tenors.
It was a packed house, as expected, with over 15,000 music
lovers congregating to the Pavilion and the lawn for the event.
So when the two cultural cornerstones of Chicago decided
to host a similar benefit five years later, it should have been
a no-brainer, right? The operative word there was
similar
—
though the great Pavarotti was again to be the star of the
night, that’s about where the similarities ended. Instead of
Bartoletti and the Lyric’s orchestra, the tenor was joined just
by pianist Leone Magiera, and his program wasn’t filled with
arias from the likes of
Tosca
and
Pagliacci
as had been the first
concert. Pavarotti wanted to present songs that were new to his
repertory, including a couple arias by Mozart and Massenet,
with the balance of the program comprising several of Bellini’s
non-operatic ariettas and a set of folk-based songs by Respighi,
Mascagni, and Sibella, along with Denza’s
Occhi di fata
. But it
was still quintessential Pavarotti. As the
New York Times
put
it, evaluating a reprise of the program for the Metropolitan
Opera later that year, “his way of spinning out a phrase and
making it seem deeply felt carried the moment.” And his voice
did carry—an even larger crowd, topping 17,000, flocked to
Ravinia for the rare recital from the Pavilion stage. He only
appeared at Ravinia once more, in 1991 for a gala concert of
Donizetti’s
L’elisir d’amore
.
June 14, 1988
30 YEARS AGO
ON THIS DATE
JUNE 1 – JUNE 17, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE
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