James Conlon
Review: Solid Cast, Stolid Mozart at Ravinia
By Hannah Edgar
Matthew Polenzani. Tamara Wilson. Samantha Hankey. Andrea Carroll.
Those names aren’t off a Met marquee. They comprised the principal cast of Ravinia’s Idomeneo, directed by James Conlon in a concert version at the Ravinia Festival’s Martin Theater. “Mozart in the Martin,” as the series is branded, has been a trademark of Conlon’s since he was music director of the festival from 2005 to 2015. Over the years he and the Chicago Symphony have cavorted through the Da Ponte trilogy, The Magic Flute, and The Abduction from the Serail, all with the top-flight casting you’d expect at an international opera house. Nor has the requisite concert setting deterred Conlon from presenting Mozart’s more esoteric operas.
Two years ago, he led La clemenza di Tito; even Idomeneo, long a rarity, isn’t a Ravinia first, with Conlon and the CSO having tackled it in 2012.
…this Idomeneo was full of splendors. Polenzani was exquisitely cast in the title role, his signature brassy tenor capable of shrinking to a delicate tendril and swelling back again. His acting was also far more compelling than it was last year in La clemenza di Tito, relaying the depths of Idomeneo’s anguish and the fevered intensity of his rage with potent immediacy.
…
The entire evening ran a tight three hours: Conlon wisely cut the ballets and placed a short intermission halfway through Act II, after Idomeneo’s “Fuor del mar.” Hearteningly, the Martin was well-sold—a challenge in other bookings this season, and for Conlon’s 2022 Mozart diptych. May it be so every year. Even on an off day, audiences would be hard-pressed to hear a better-cast Mozart this side of New York.