Ravinia Announces LuPone's Turn in Gypsy for Summer '06
By: BWW News Desk Nov. 10, 2005
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Along with Audra McDonald, LuPone has been the queen of the Ravinia Festival in the last five years, appearing in five concert productions of Stephen Sondheim shows--Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Desiree in A Little Night Music, Yvonne in Sunday in the Park with George, Fosca in Passion and most recently, Cora in Anyone Can Whistle. The latter was to have been the culminating show in the Chicago festival's 75th birthday tribute to Sondheim, but Welz Kauffman, president and CEO of Ravinia, recently told the Chicago Sun-Times that an extension would be likely due to the success of the shows.
"Gypsy will be a rare opportunity to hear one of the world's great orchestras performing one of the most significant works of the American stage and with a legendary star cast in a role that seems meant for her. . . . Gypsy is the perfect transition as we widen the Sondheim 75 series to present work by other masters of music theatre. That's because not only will we get to hear the CSO give the royal treatment to the best work of one of the great American tune-smiths, Jule Styne, but all us who crave an annual Sondheim showcase from Ravinia will still have his lyrics to enjoy," stated Kauffman.
Lonny Price is set to direct the musical, which despite its title, is really the story of the stage mother who unconsciously and uncompromisingly lives out her show business dreams through her daughters June and Louise (with the latter becoming stripper Gypsy Rose Lee). LuPone has professed interest in playing Rose in the past, but a notorious dispute with Arthur Laurents, Gypsy's librettist, is said to have kept her from taking on the role in a major production. Sondheim, of course, was the lyricist of Gypsy, while Jule Styne wrote the music. Paul Gemigani will conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the Ravinia production.
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