Vocal Artists from Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute
Program to include vocal works sung in Italian
Even before the invention of opera at the start of the 17th century, connoisseurs of vocal art in virtually every European country conceded the superiority of Italian as the ideal vehicle for singing. With its profusion of open vowels, it is a language that virtually sings when spoken; and when set to music of the greatest composers, the result is an incomparable showcase for the human voice. A polyglot in excelsis, Franz Liszt was comfortable setting texts in Latin, Hungarian, German, French, even one song in English— but the Italian language gave his luminous music new wings.