By Andrew Gans
18 Sep 2008

Patti LuPone
photo by Ethan Hill

Patti LuPone, who first played Gypsy stage mother Rose in a weekend of staged concerts at the Ravinia Festival, will return to the Illinois venue in summer 2009 for an evening devoted to the work of Kurt Weill.

The Aug. 8, 2009, concert will be part of the 2009 summer residency of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the famed outdoor venue.

The concert, which will mark LuPone's first Ravinia appearance since winning her second Tony Award for her work in the current Broadway revival of Gypsy, will feature Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins as well as a selection of his Broadway works.

The evening is part of Ravinia's Breaking the Silence series, which features the work of a composer whose works may have left a greater impact had it not been for suppression by the Nazis. In a statement Ravinia president and CEO Welz Kauffman said, "Kurt Weill fits a different profile than the composers we've honored so far because he actually made it to America and left a rich history of music created for the Broadway stage. What most of us don't recognize is that he left behind a classical career in Europe, where his music was branded as degenerate, only to have the musical elite dismiss his new American show music as frivolous. This summer, we want to demonstrate both worlds of Weill."

The Weill salute will also include an Aug. 4 concert featuring Weill's Mahagonny-Songspiel.

Patti LuPone is currently enjoying what is perhaps her biggest stage success to date. For her performance as Rose in the current revival of Gypsy at the St. James Theatre, the singing actress has won the Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Drama League's Distinguished Performance Award. A Tony Award winner for her work in Evita, LuPone also earned an Olivier Award for her performances in the West End productions of Les Misérables and The Cradle Will Rock. Her other theatrical credits include Sunset Boulevard, Anything Goes, Oliver!, Working, The Old Neighborhood, Master Class and Pal Joey. LuPone also headlined two solo Broadway concerts, Patti LuPone On Broadway and Matters of the Heart, and received glowing notices for her performance as Mrs. Lovett in the Lincoln Center concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and a Tony nomination for her performance in the recent revival of that Sondheim work. She was seen in the Kennedy Center's staging of Marc Blitzstein's Regina and joined Audra McDonald for Los Angeles Opera's production of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. She was also seen as Rose in a Ravinia Festival concert run of Gypsy. Her screen and recording credits are numerous.

Individual lawn and reserved-seat tickets to the 2009 Chicago Symphony Orchestra residency go on sale to the general public April 16 by visiting www.ravinia.org. The complete 2009 Ravinia season will be announced on March 12.