In Wednesday’s (7/17) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein writes, “While much of the classical music world is immersed in honoring the bicentennials of Verdi and Wagner, another composer anniversary of signal importance, the 100th birthday of Benjamin Britten, is jostling for attention this year.… Perhaps no single musician is delving more broadly into Britten’s voluminous body of operatic, orchestral, vocal, choral and chamber works than conductor James Conlon. The Ravinia music director has turned his longtime admiration of Britten’s works into a personal, three-year performance cycle in the U.S. and Europe. Concert and opera goers in Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Rome and New York are the principal beneficiaries, but Ravinia goers will reap some of the bounty as well. ‘Britten is my favorite British composer, the one who always spoke directly to me, from a very young age,’ Conlon says. ‘His accomplishments are monumental in the context of his time.… Like Mozart, he wrote very, very well in all genres. He had a unique voice to which he was faithful and even stubborn.’ ” The article is accompanied by listings of the Britten works being performed at Ravinia this summer.
Posted July 19, 2013
