Word: ravinia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Chicago's Ravinia Festival had not had such prestige and excitement since Seiji Ozawa stepped down as music director in 1968. Part of last week's furor was over Soprano Beverly Sills, unfurling the druidical delights of Bellini's Norma. But even more of it was over the short, pudgy, bespectacled white man with a modified Afro who ambled out to the podium and called the Chicago Symphony to work with a mighty sweep of his left fist...
...hottest young conductors on the American scene. Tackling such wintry fare as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, or sitting down at the piano to conduct and play Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12 with a crystalline joy, Levine has given this summer's Ravinia programs new musical depth as well as box office appeal...
Levine favors sporty clothes (he conducted one recent Ravinia concert in dark blue bell-bottoms and matching polo shirt) and is so relaxed that he can indulge in one of his favorite pastimes, eating, even during intermissions. Aside from his steady girl friend, a Manhattan oboist, he has no organized nonmusical interests except the Navajo rugs and dinosaur bones that he collects for his apartment overlooking Central Park. Says he: "I feel there is enough scheduling in a musician's life that I try not to regulate the other things...