Broadway stars to launch Ravinia's 2009 season

Nearly every arts administrator brings something special to his job, and for Welz Kauffman, president and CEO of the Ravinia Festival, it has been the festival's focus on one of the great American art forms - Broadway musical theater.

One of Ravinia's hallmarks over the past decade has been its nearly annual productions in semi-staged concert versions, starring the best of today's Broadway stars. The series was launched with the critically acclaimed "Sondheim 75" series, followed by other landmark Broadway shows.

The latest will take place June 5, when Ravinia opens its season with the classic Lerner and Loewe musical "Camelot," starring George Hearn, Sylvia McNair and Rod Gilfry, all three back from the festival's 2007 production of "The Most Happy Fella" by Frank Loesser. Also returning from that show will be stage director Marc Robin. Conductor Erich Kunzel will lead the Ravinia Festival Orchestra.

"Opening the Ravinia 2009 season with 'Camelot' feels just right at this time for so very many reasons, mainly because it is one of the most beautiful and lush music theater scores of all, and because, as with 'The Most Happy Fella,' we have an opportunity to once again showcase one of our great musical stars, George Hearn, this time in his first portrayal of King Arthur," Kauffman said. "And, of course, like 'The Most Happy Fella,' 'Camelot' is a marvelous love triangle between different generations."

Alan J. Lerner (writer/lyricist) and composer Frederick Loewe brought the musical version of the Arthurian legend to Broadway in 1960, and the show soon became a symbol of the optimistic early years of the Kennedy administration. The score includes the classic title song, along with "If Ever I Would Leave You," "The Lusty Month of May" and "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"

Named for the castle of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the story concerns the love triangle between Arthur, Lady Guenevere and Sir Lancelot. Directed by Moss Hart, the original stage production starred Julie Andrews and Richard Burton; director Joshua Logan's 1967 film starred Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave.

Tony Award winner George Hearn, who also starred in Ravinia's productions of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" and "A Little Night Music," will return to the festival following a triumphant run as the Wizard of Oz in the Broadway production of "Wicked."

Two-time Grammy Award winner Sylvia McNair will play Guenevere. McNair has appeared at Ravinia in eight seasons over her 25-year career that encompasses opera, oratorio, cabaret and musical theater.

Baritone Rod Gilfry (Lancelot) appeared at Ravinia in the festival's centennial season-ending concert "Carousel of the Animals," along with McNair.

Ravinia has also just announced its full plan for the 2009 Abraham Lincoln bicentennial, which will include world-premiere commissions, works inspired by Lincoln's words, pieces composed by Lincoln's musical contemporaries and a tour through Illinois, all under the banner "Mystic Chords of Memory," a phrase Lincoln uttered in his first inaugural address.

Here's a summary:

• Welz Kauffman will follow in the footsteps of the 16th president, bringing the aptly named Lincoln Trio to downstate towns associated with Lincoln's life. The tour, from Feb. 13 through April 24, will feature free concerts at schools (where students may get involved as narrators), concert halls, senior centers, celebrated historical sites and lesser-known ones, including a Sherwin-Williams paint store that stands on property once owned by Lincoln. The repertoire will include three newly composed works for piano trio that were commissioned through Ravinia's first composition competition. These works all feature spoken text. Paired with these premieres will be works for music trio by Brahms and Mendelssohn, contemporaries of Lincoln.

• On June 12, Ravinia will present a commission from Chicago jazz legend Ramsey Lewis. The piece will feature a jazz ensemble, vocals and spoken word.

• Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait," with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, will be featured in the annual Gala Benefit Evening on July 18. Ravinia music director James Conlon will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and the vocal soloists soprano Erin Wall, mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and bass Morris Robinson.

• The season ends Sept. 17 with a full-evening dance work, Ravinia's previously announced commission from Bill T. Jones, tentatively titled "Fondly Do We Hope - Fervently Do We Pray." The piece will be workshopped at Ravinia in May, with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company returning Sept. 17 for the full world premiere. Jones, who won a Tony Award for choreographing "Spring Awakening," has previewed his impressions of Lincoln in two companion pieces, "Another Evening: Serenade" and "The Proposition," premiered at the American Dance Festival in July; and "100 Migrations," premiered at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in November.