While Cincinnatians were surrounded by swine, the Cincinnati May Festival quietly became a phenomenon of a different kind.

        Last year, with blockbusters like Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand and Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, the May Festival registered its highest attendance in 25 years. Three out of six performances were sold out. It sold a record 2,531 subscriptions.

        For the 10th year, its operating budget (now $1.5 million) was in the black. Last year, the New York Times and members of the international press wrote glowing reports of the oldest choral festival on this side of the globe.

James Conlon directs the May Festival on its opening night in Music Hall in 2000. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        “To hear such a sound in the vast and excellent acoustics of Music Hall remains an unprecedented experience,” Le Monde de la Musique wrote. “One could only hope for such a festival in France!”

1990s good years

        The world is discovering what Cincinnatians have known since 1873. Although the festival has had ups and downs in its 128-year history, the 1990s were good. So, while Paul Brown Stadium racked up cost overruns and the Bengals bungled — the stars aligned at the May Festival.

        Those stars include 150 volunteer choristers, music director James Conlon and choral director Robert Porco.

        “I've been on board since 1986, when we were losing money on a regular basis,” says Glenn B. Jeffers, president of the board. “The last 10 years, we've had a balanced budget with a surplus. It has been a number of things — the biggest is the support of the community.”

        The festival reinvented itself with innovative programs and a recent $2 million endowment campaign that reaped $2.125 million (the endowment is now $6.5 million). A new marketing strategy beams May Festival news to the nation — and the world.

        It has paid off. Last year, 14 percent of May Festival attendees came from outside the Tristate.

        “That's substantial,” Mr. Jeffers says. “People are making a regular visit to Cincinnati in May because of the May Festival. That's the direction we want to go.”

IF YOU GO

May Festival subscription concerts (May 18, 19, 25 and 26) will be held in Music Hall. A special concert will take place May 20 at Isaac M. Wise (Plum Street) Temple, downtown.    Season renewals will be sent next week. Single tickets will go on sale April 16.    For subscription information ($21-$159; $200 box) call 381-3300; fax 744-3599.

        Mr. Conlon's 2001 season reflects the festival's impressive past of historic performances. For instance, when its forces perform Mahler's Symphony No. 3 on May 25, 2001, they will be repeating a work that had its U.S. premiere at the festival in 1914.
       

Back to Bach

        Haydn's The Creation, which opens the season May 18, is an audience favorite. One of its arias appeared on the first season in 1873.

        And one of the “top five” monuments of choral music will revisit the festival after a long absence: J.S. Bach's B Minor Mass (May 19).

        “We haven't done the B Minor Mass since my first May Festival (in 1979),'' Mr. Conlon says by phone from Germany, where he is music director for the City of Cologne. “Those were the bad box office years. Everyone thought people don't want to come and hear Bach. All that's changed. I hope that this is the beginning of a Bach revival.”

        “It will be a challenge, but one that the chorus will love,” adds Mr. Porco, who will conduct that performance.

        Because Covington's Cathedral Basilica will be undergoing a planned $4.7 million renovation, the festival will not perform there this year. Instead, a special concert will take place May 20 in the Isaac M. Wise (Plum Street) Temple, which was the venue for the premiere of Kurt Weill's The Prophets two years ago.

        The special concert will premiere The Emperor of Atlantis, a “cabaret opera”by Viktor Ullmann, a Holocaust victim. The concert will observe the 125th anniversary of Hebrew Union College.

        The work was composed in Terezin, a concentration camp used by Nazis as a “model ghetto,” where artists and children pursued cultural activities before being transported to death camps.

        “It has a wonderful dramatic effect, ironic but touching at the same time,” Mr. Conlon says.

        Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park artistic director Ed Stern will be artistic adviser for the concert production.
       

"1812' chorus

        The season finale (May 26) will present choral works inspired by wartime events and conflicts going back to biblical times.

        Mr. Conlon, a champion of Alexander Zemlinsky, will lead the festival premiere of Zemlinsky's Psalms 23 and 83. Also on the program are three Russian works, including Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture in its rarely heard version with chorus.

        Of the soloists, soprano Pamela Coburn, a native of Dayton, will perform for the first time. Ms. Coburn, whose teachers included Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, has made an acclaimed career in Europe and has sung at the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall.

        Icelandic bass-baritone Kristinn Sigmundsson will also make his debut, in a rare American appearance. The singer is a regular at the Paris Opera, where Mr. Conlon is principal conductor.

        Among the returning artists are John Aler, Florence Quivar, John Cheek and Stanford Olsen.

        With the idea of expanding the two-week festival to include workshops, the festival is planting a first seed with master classes led by the distinguished soprano Benita Valente. (The master classes, for May Festival Chorus members, are not open to the public.)
       

PBS debut

        This winter, the May Festival Chorus, which performs year-round with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Pops, will record its first CD, a holiday disc, Mr. Porco says.

        And a tentative date is set for the festival's PBS debut — June — in a program featuring Carl Orff's Carmina Burana taped last spring.

        Meanwhile, the festival can revel in an unprecedented high.

        “When you have the New York Times come into town and write up a local institution, that's heavy-duty stuff,” Mr. Jeffers says. “It has not been any one single event, but a combination of all of these that made the May Festival come alive.”
       

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