Winds of change are wafting over the wide lawns and tree-shaded pavilion of Ravinia Park. Perhaps change is too strong a word to describe the subtle shifts of emphasis in the program offerings at the 1991 Ravinia Festival, the first season to be planned in its entirety by Zarin Mehta, the festival`s executive director. But clearly Ravinia`s main man is putting his own artistic stamp on what the summer public sees and hears.
To cite but one example, this is the first festival season in recent memory to begin before the downtown Chicago Symphony season has ended. The 56th Ravinia season opened this weekend in north suburban Highland Park with the first three of 10 consecutive evenings of jazz, Mehta`s most conspicuous innovation. The CSO will not begin its eight-week residency until June 21, when music director James Levine conducts a gala benefit concert of Donizetti`s ”The Elixir of Love,” starring Luciano Pavarotti and Kathleen Battle. The 13-week season runs through Sept. 2.
The 52-year-old, Bombay-born Mehta, who succeeded Edward Gordon as chief executive last June, appears to be quietly but firmly in charge as he talks about the season in his comfortable office overlooking the Ravinia grounds.
”The kind of thing I tried to do when planning my first season was to ask, `Now what will attract people every night?` ” Mehta says, in softly accented cadences. ”To some people that will make me seem bottom-line-oriented, but really I just hate to see empty seats. If I`ve put 3,500 pavilion seats on the market, my objective has to be to fill them, otherwise there is no point in having a festival.
”So you try to do the best you can with a good variety of names and other artists who aren`t as well known, combined with programs that will bring people in. I don`t expect to succeed 100 percent of the time. But we have about 20 popular and classical concerts that are just about sold out. The public is extremely loyal to the artists they like-people like Tony Bennett and Andre Watts and Alicia de Larrocha. And that`s wonderful, because it gives us a base on which to build.”
Thus, Ravinia `91 will be treating its symphonic audience to such familiar, presold names as Itzhak Perlman, James Galway, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Pinchas Zukerman, Misha Dichter, Shlomo Mintz and Erich Kunzel. Following Levine on the CSO podium will be guest conductors who have enjoyed successes in previous festivals or with the orchestra downtown-Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Mariss Jansons, Marek Janowski and Zubin Mehta (Zarin`s older brother).
And because Mehta realizes that Ravinia must continue to be a festival for the few as well as for the many, he is presenting events geared to more specialized tastes as well. These include vocal recitals by Francoise Pollet and Jerry Hadley; the world premiere of a Ravinia-commissioned chamber work by John Harbison; and the new Musica Viva series of contemporary concerts by the Kronos Quartet, Chicago Pro Musica, Joan La Barbera and other performers.
Mehta`s dual background in business and the arts-he came to Ravinia after eight years as managing director of the Montreal Symphony, also with extensive experience as an accountant-obviously had weighed strongly in his favor when the Ravinia trustees began their search for a successor to Gordon.
Now, with the Ravinia budget nearing $11 million (a 25 percent increase over 1990), the former partner in the international accounting firm of Coopers and Lybrand finds himself cast in the role of one of Ravinia`s most important fundraisers. It`s a role Mehta admits he is still trying on for size.
”When I went from accounting to managing the Montreal Symphony, I told my colleagues of the board I would direct the orchestra from an artistic and financial standpoint but that I was hopeless at fundraising. Within six months I found it was so much easier to ask for money from inside the organization rather than as an outside volunteer. I became the best fundraiser the Montreal Symphony ever had; when I left last year they had something like 62 sponsoring companies.
”That won`t necessarily be the case here because I don`t know the
(funding) community the way I did in Montreal. That will happen.”
Another Mehta brainchild is the so-called Ravinia Festival Orchestra, which will present six classical and pop concerts at the end of the season. Some of the players will come from the CSO, others from the Lyric Opera orchestra; the rest will be area freelancers. The size of the ensemble will vary.
”We`re not trying to create a brilliant orchestra (to rival the CSO); it really comes out of certain programming I want to try,” Mehta cautions. ”My job is to give Ravinia 13 weeks of concerts. Two of them are jazz and eight are by the CSO; what do I do for the others? That was really the concept behind the creation of this orchestra.”
He says he is particularly excited about Ravinia`s multiscreen presentation on Aug. 20 of the classic Sergei Eisenstein film, ”Alexander Nevsky,” with a full-sized Festival Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony Chorus performing the original Prokofiev score. The orchestra will shrink for an all- Vivaldi concert with Rampal as flute soloist (Aug. 22) and a Chicago Symphony Chorus performance of Handel`s ”Messiah,” in a German-language arrangement by Mozart (Aug. 25).
More events by the Ravinia Festival Orchestra could take place next year if the public response warrants, Mehta says.
Beyond that, he has organized the summer concert schedule a bit more systematically than has been the case. All CSO concerts this season will take place on Friday through Sunday nights; most pop events will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays; and most Murray Theatre chamber programs on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mehta reports that the orchestra players and guest conductors have reacted ”very positively” to the new distribution of orchestra services; he hopes the public will be equally sanguine about Ravinia`s new ”grid”
programming.
For many CSO buffs the concerts directed by Levine represent the major musical events of the Ravinia summer. Celebrating his 19th season as festival music director, Levine will be a more active participant this year than in recent summers. His three-week residency will cover a range of repertoire from Mozart`s Requiem and Stravinsky`s opera-oratorio ”Oedipus Rex” (which Deutsche Grammophon will record) to Mahler`s Ninth Symphony and ”Das Lied von der Erde.” As pianist, he will partner Christa Ludwig and Dawn Upshaw in song recitals in addition to appearing in several chamber concerts and previews.
With Mehta in the top spot, Levine apparently continuing his Ravinia association beyond the expiration of his present contract in 1992 and Gordon staying on as director of Ravinia`s educational wing (the Steans Institute for Young Artists), a stable Ravinia administration is assured for at least the next several seasons.
Of course, Ravinia will always be at the mercy of the weather, and the heavy rains that beset the park last summer hurt the box office to the tune of $100,000. Mehta says he is prepared for any meteorological curves the storm gods may throw-insofar as any impresario can predict the unpredictable.
”Obviously I`m not going to have 102 nights of fair weather,” he says.
”But at least I can try to sell out the pavilion as often as I can and put that money in the bank; the money is safe whether it rains or not. Then you can say, `OK, half of those events should work on the lawn.` If you break even, you`re all right. That`s where you need stars. An Itzhak Perlman will allow us to sell out the pavilion and give us a respectable crowd.” He smiles. ”With or without bad weather.”
