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When OperaWent
Verdi’s
La traviata
—Puccini’s
La bohème
—Mozart’s
The Magic Flute
—
Bizet’s
Carmen
—Rossini’s
The Barber of Seville
—Townshend’s
Tommy
.
Wait … what?
Pete
Townshend? As in
The Who’s
Pete Townshend?
The guy who used to smash his guitar? He and The Who’s
Tommy
belong
on this list of some of the greatest composers and operas of all time?
Yes.
Roger Daltrey made it so.
OGER DALTREY PROVES
Pete Townshend’s
place among opera’s elite—true to form,
Tommy
tells its story entirely through music—
plus the lasting power and drama of
Tommy
as a revolutionary rock and roll masterpiece
during a -city tour this summer that stops for two multi-di-
mensional concerts at Ravinia on June and . And seeing
and feeling Daltrey revisit this seminal rock fantasia truly is a
rare treat.
Daltrey’s dynamic Ravinia-debut program features Town-
shend’s turbulent tale of the traumatized Tommy, who wit-
nesses the murder of his mother’s lover at the hands of his
presumed-dead father upon his return from World War I. e
visceral event transforms Tommy into a mentally shuttered,
deaf, dumb, and blind kid (who sure plays a mean pinball).
Musically, the concert features members of the present
touring incarnation of e Who, also backed by lush scoring
from the Ravinia Festival Orchestra with conductor Keith Lev-
enson, a longtime Daltrey concert collaborator. But at its core
is the work’s ultimate interpreter, the microphone-swinging
singer with the muscular, earth-moving voice who e ortlessly
embodied and breathed life into
Tommy
the rock opera and
Tommy the character.
R
HEN WE PL AYED I T L IVE ,
it changed me
completely. I grabbed it by the scru of the
neck and said, ‘Right, let’s make this person
live
,’ ” Daltrey explained in the documentary
Sensation: e Story of e Who’s ‘Tommy
.’
Turning next year,
Tommy
has taken on many incarna-
tions. In addition to its original -song, double-album format
released in May
, it was staged in
by the London
Symphony Orchestra, starring additional rock luminaries
like Rod Stewart, Steve Winwood, and Ringo Starr. In
, it
became a star-studded, extravagant Ken Russell–directed lm
with Daltrey fully at the center and also starring Elton John,
Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Ann-Margaret, and a warbling Jack
Nicholson. In
, Townshend and director Des McAnu
adapted
Tommy
into a darker, explosive stage musical that
went to Broadway and won ve Tony Awards. And in
e
Who gave a rare full performance for the Teenage Cancer Trust
charity at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
When e Who released
Tommy
and soon a er performed
it at the Woodstock music festival, the band played right into
a watershed moment. It was hoisted from an artsy, rugged
pop group into respected rock royalty thanks to its “serious”
musical approach, brash ambition, and rousing numbers like
“Pinball Wizard,” “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” “Amazing Jour-
ney,” “ e Acid Queen,” and “I’m Free.”
W
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JUNE 18 – JULY 8, 2018
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