CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
We have since learned to share Levine with New York’s Metropolitan Opera (where he has been music director since 1976) and the major podiums and opera houses of the world. Given the game of musical chairs currently being played in the music world, it seems inevitable that his glory days at Ravinia will soon be coming to an end (he is the most obvious candidate to replace Herbert von Karajan in Berlin). In fact, this year’s residency at Ravinia–two weeks of concerts–is an all-time low for Levine, who seems to be following in Solti’s steps as an absentee landlord. (Last year Levine was here for only two weeks as well, but the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was playing in New York with Leonard Bernstein during what was always Ravinia’s opening weekend. That meant that both Levine and the CSO lost a week at Ravinia.) Ravinia management claims that next year Levine will resume a three-week, nine-concert season, but anything seems possible between then and now.
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The following Friday featured two choral works, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Orff’s Carmina Burana (with vocal soloists Hei-Kyung Hong, Philip Creech, and Thomas Hampson), while Saturday brought the magnificent Mahler Symphony no. 3 (with mezzo-soprano Birgitta Svenden). Levine’s residency concluded that Sunday with Berlioz’s Harold in Italy (with violist Michael Ouzounian), the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto no. 2 (with Andre Watts), and the second series of orchestral fragments from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe.
Although Verdi completed and arranged for the first performance of the Requiem as a memorial to the Italian writer Manzoni, he had already started composing a requiem mass on the occasion of the death of Rossini, for which he completed only one section, the final text of the mass, the Libera me (“deliver me”). When prodded by a critic and his publisher, Verdi proceeded even further with the work. His grief at Manzoni’s death–a man whom he had met only once, but whom he literally worshiped because of the power and beauty of his writings–was so profound that he needed to express it in music. This was a welcome surprise for his public, for after a 30-year, 25-opera career, the 61-year-old Verdi had been silent for two years (since Aida). A public concert to premiere the Requiem was planned in Manzoni’s hometown of Milan on the first anniversary of his death. Tickets were hot, the demand two-and-a-half times what the Church of San Marco could accommodate.
Veteran mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos was unfortunately not in her best voice that night. Although she put considerable feeling and expression into her performance, she was not projecting well; and her tone lacked its usual luster. Announced tenor Neil Shicoff was indisposed, but heldentenor extraordinaire Gary Lakes was able to fill in (another tremendous advantage in Ravinia’s music director being also artistic director of the Met). Lakes not only has a magnificent, clean, and open tenor sound, his voice is huge. What more could you ask for? His initial entrance in the Kyrie was positively thrilling. And who better to fill in the bottom end than superstar bass Samuel Ramey? Ramey was in splendid voice, and his low intonation of “Requiem aeternam” in the Lux aeterna, answered by the low brass, was a chilling moment.
What is so fascinating is that two conductors can have such completely different yet effective approaches, and with the same orchestra. Solti is dynamic with Mahler, moving relentlessly from one climax to the next, emphasizing conflict and tension. There is great drama in Levine’s Mahler as well, but he always lets the music linger in a more Viennese style, with greater emphasis on line and transparency of texture.
I had much the same feeling about Levine’s account of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments. It seemed perfunctory, and lacked the spice and “screaming” quality that Pierre Boulez brought to the work less than two years ago downtown. Why do it again so soon?
