CSO opens 'summer of anniversaries' Monday at Ravinia

The 2010 Ravinia Festival has been offering a wide range of popular music and jazz concerts during its opening three weeks, but for classical music listeners, Ravinia means one thing: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Fresh off its season-ending, three-week Beethoven festival under the baton of Bernard Haitink at Orchestra Hall, the CSO will open its 74th annual residency on the North Shore at 8 p.m. Monday in the pavilion. Pianist Garrick Ohlsson and Ravinia music director James Conlon will offer a concert celebrating the 200th birthday of Frédéric Chopin. The program will feature the legendary Polish composer's Fantaisie in F Minor, Scherzo in B-flat Minor and both piano concertos.

Prior to the main-stage concert, a free preview concert in Bennett-Gordon Hall will feature young artists from Ravinia's Steans Music Institute, starting at 5:45 p.m. These traditional preview concerts will take place throughout the summer prior to selected CSO concerts.

The CSO's opening week will continue at 8 p.m. Wednesday when Conlon conducts an all-Richard Wagner concert featuring soprano Christine Brewer and tenor John Treleaven. Music from Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung" cycle will include (from the climactic opera "Götterdämmerung") the orchestral excerpts "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" the "Siegfried's Funeral Music," with Ms. Brewer singing the opera's closing scene, "Brünnhilde's Immolation." Brewer and Treleaven will also perform the love duet from "Siegfried," the third of the four "Ring" operas. This concert will offer supertitles.

This month, Conlon is wrapping up Los Angeles Opera's first complete performances of Wagner's "Ring" cycle, also featuring Treleaven and Brewer.

The Juilliard String Quartet will return to the Martin Theatre at 8 p.m. Tuesday to celebrate composer Robert Schumann's 200th birthday with a performance of his Quartet No. 3 in A Major. Founded in 1946, the Juilliard String Quartet is quartet-in-residence at The Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Ravinia will continue the Schumann bicentennial at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 3, with a performance by pianist Vladimir Feltsman in the Martin Theatre. The program will include Schumann's "Arabeske" in C Major and "Carnaval," along with Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," this year's selection for its "One Score, One Chicago" educational initiative. The orchestral version of the "Pictures at an Exhibition" will be performed by Conlon and the Chicago Symphony on July 8.

In addition to the 200th birthdays of Chopin and Schumann, Ravinia's "summer of anniversaries" will include the 200th year of Mexican independence with several concerts throughout the summer. A major highlight will be Mexican pianist Jorge Federico Osorio playing all five Beethoven concertos with Conlon and the CSO on July 15-16.

Other celebrations this summer include a July 11 concert noting the 20th anniversary of the deaths of American composer-conductors Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein; with another Bernstein concert offering music from "Candide" set for July 23. On July 13, a concert honoring the 150th birthday of Gustav Mahler (the adagio from his unfinished 10th Symphony) and 100th birthday of American composer Samuel Barber (his "Adagio for Strings"). On the same concert, American violinist Joshua Bell will play Felix Mendelssohn's E-minor Concerto.

The CSO's August schedule includes Conlon conducting two performances each in the Martin Theatre of the Mozart operas: "Cosi fan tutte" on Aug. 5 and 7; and "The Marriage of Figaro" on Aug. 6 and 8. Casts will include soprano Frederica Von Stade and baritone Nathan Gunn, along with the Chicago Symphony Chorus.

This summer's music theater presentation holds three performances of Irving Berlin's "Annie Get Your Gun" in the pavilion Aug. 13-15, starring longtime Ravinia favorite and Tony Award winner Patti LuPone in the title role. Lonny Price is the stage director and the CSO will be conducted by Paul Gemignani.

The CSO's annual Ravinia gala concert, conducted by Conlon, is titled "Broadway's Best in a Salute to Stephen Sondheim." Artists taking part will include LuPone, Audra McDonald, George Hearn and Michael Cerveris, all veterans of Ravinia's critically acclaimed Sondheim productions.

Pavilion reserved-seat ticket prices for CSO concerts vary by event, so visit ravinia.org or phone (847) 266-5100 for details and availability. Lawn seating is $10 for most CSO concerts, with exceptions including the gala concert at $25 and "Annie Get Your Gun" at $20.