Illinois music fest marks centennial

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Aug 2, 2004 by F.N. D'Alessio Associated Press

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. -- One of the longest-running traditions in American music began 100 years ago when a now-forgotten performer sat down at a steam calliope and let fly with "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home."

It was the Aug. 15, 1904, grand opening of Ravinia, a railroad- run amusement park that quickly evolved into a summer music festival.

Over the century, the calliope concerts were replaced with performances by the likes of Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Frank Zappa. Now in its 100th anniversary summer, fans are again spilling across Ravinia's lawns for an eclectic lineup of 2004 concerts that includes the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Blues Traveler, George Thorogood, Tony Bennett and Renee Fleming.

The 36-acre wooded site in Chicago's northern suburbs now has several restaurants, catering for picnics and an extensive sound system. But it began as a park run by the A.C. Frost Company to promote its fledgling Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad.

In its early years, Ravinia had picnic grounds, a baseball field, an electric fountain and a casino for dining and dancing. And, most importantly, it offered a brief escape from summertime Chicago.

"Chicago was grim in the summers then, with the stockyards and all the coal-fueled heavy industry," said Ravinia Festival president and CEO Welz Kauffman. "But for $1, you could get a train ride up to Ravinia, admission to the park and your ride back home. You were out in the open, under the trees."

Many escaping the city in those early days were German and Czech immigrants with a thirst for beer and music, so in 1905, the park's new music pavilion was inaugurated with a concert by the New York Symphony Society (now the New York Philharmonic), led by Walter Damrosch. Tickets were 25 cents. Later that summer, Frederick Stock visited with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The park balanced popular and classical music until the railroad went bankrupt in 1910.

The following year, a group of wealthy suburbanites banded together to buy Ravinia and reopened it as a summer venue for classical music.

"It really was the first summer classical music festival in the country," said Kauffman. The Hollywood Bowl concerts didn't begin until 1922, the Philadelphia Orchestra didn't start its Robin Hood Dell appearances until 1930, and Tanglewood did not become the summer home of the Boston Symphony until 1937.

Opera first came to Ravinia in 1912 and was the festival's main attraction through the 1920s.

"One thing that helped was that there were two competing opera producers in Chicago at that time," Kauffman said. "If one impresario booked a big star for downtown, his rival was sure to try to get someone equally famous for Ravinia."

Since downtown productions were dominated by the imperious soprano Mary Garden, rival divas often took Ravinia. Soprano Lucrezia Bori was greeted after one Prohibition-era performance by roses and champagne from Chicago's best-known opera fan of the day -- Al Capone.

The Great Depression forced Ravinia to close its gates after the 1931 season, but North Shore businessmen came to the festival's rescue in 1936, reopening it for a six-week season that drew more than 52,000 fans.

When Gershwin showed up that summer to perform "Rhapsody in Blue," some of those fans climbed into the trees to watch him at the piano.

Ravinia never returned to its opera-heavy days, but it has traditionally presented a concert version of a major opera on opening night. This year's opener was the American premiere of "The Princess Magogo kaDinuzulu" -- the first opera written in Zulu -- and a 2002 work by composer Mzilikazi Khumalo and librettist Themba Msimang.

On opening night in 1973, Beverly Sills sang in the title role of Bellini's "Norma." But Kauffman said the most legendary Ravinia opener was probably in the 1950s, when the great tenor Jussi Bjoerling, who normally avoided Wagner works, sang probably his only "Lohengrin." The hard-drinking Swede was almost as famous for his wooden stage presence as for his voice, and had discouraged previous urgings to try the role by asking: "Who would ever believe that I would fight a battle of broadswords and win?"

Despite the growing presence of jazz, rock and pop at Ravinia, the opening night operas retain a certain magic, both for those inside the music pavilion and the thousands on the lawn outside, where the picnics are often wine and cheese and occasionally accompanied by candelabra.

"It's just the greatest place," said Faye Grossman, a retired teacher. When she can get the tickets, she sits in the pavilion where she can see the musicians' faces, otherwise, she said she's happy listening with the crowds on the lawn.

Ravinia's centennial season began June 4 and runs through Sept. 12. It will have nearly 150 musical, dance and theatrical performances before closing, traditionally, with Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" -- complete with real cannons, of course.