Ravinia 2025 Issue 5

Louis Langrée conducting his final concert as Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, then making his home in Ohio while simultaneously Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in New York de Lyon in 1998–2000 and England’s Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1998–2003. French President Emmanuel Macron has extended his contract through 2029. While he does still conduct one or two of the company’s eight or so annual productions, his focus is much more on the business side of the company’s operations. He joked that he studies the book Inflation for Dummies at night. One task he especially enjoys is fundraising, because of the sense of shared purpose it engenders. The Opéra-Comique does receive substantial funding from the French government, but he is still responsible for supplementing such subsidies with private support, a process he learned about in his American posts. But the conductor admits that he underestimated the scope of the job and the dedication that it requires to create the right conditions for artistic success. “Now, that I’m 24 hours a day into it,” he said, “it’s a very different life. People don’t applaud you at the end of the day when you’re the last person to leave the theater and turn off the lights.” His heavy work commitment to Opéra-Comique has meant that he has very little time left over for guest conducting, may- be four or five engagements during the fall-to-spring season, like his concerts in 2024/25 with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in Carnegie Hall and Montréal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, but the summer brings more opportunities to return to the podium. Ravinia leaders approached him with the idea of an all-Mozart program, and he needed little persuasion. He will be joined by acclaimed pianist Garrick Ohlsson, who chose to perform the Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K. 482. “It is one of the most sublime piano concertos—one of the greatest pieces by Mozart,” Langrée said. To open the program, he selected the overture to the opera La clemenza di Tito because it is less often performed than, say, Mozart’s overtures to Don Giovanni or Le Nozze di Figaro , and he admires its “very Mozartean” humanist message. In addition, he liked the “weird, uncommon, and wonderful” connection that the C-major key in the overture will have with concerto’s E-flat-major key. The program ends with the composer’s famed Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551, nick- named “Jupiter,” which he described as a combination of sa- cred, theatrical, chamber, and symphonic music. “It’s such an exciting piece to perform, to rehearse, and to share,” Langrée said. “People should feel that there is something bigger than just nice music. It’s an address to the best of humanity.” In the 2023 New York Times piece, the conductor called his Opéra-Comique job the last major project of his life. But he admits now that those words might have been a bit hasty. He will be just 68 in 2029, a comparatively young age for a conductor. Consider that Riccardo Muti, the CSO’s music director laureate for life, is 83 and still going strong. But Langrée admits he has no idea what kind of post he might want after the Opéra-Comique or if one might even come along. “If the rest of my life after ’29 is to be a guest conductor,” he said, “it would be wonderful. If I’m approached by an institution to start something new or take something over, why not?” Kyle MacMillan served as classical music critic for the Denver Post from 2000 through 2011. He currently freelances in Chicago, writing for such publications as the Chicago Sun-Times , Early Music America , Opera News , and Classical Voice of North America . RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 15 MARKLYONS