Ravinia

Last week, a time-table was printed in the Chicago daily press. It listed the trains which would be running for the next while between Chicago and a place called Ravinia, 21 miles north. Why anyone should want to be going to Ravinia puzzled a number of dolts, until they read how one Louis Eckstein was presenting operas there. The first was L'Amore dei Tre Re, with Martinelli, Bori and Virgilio Lazzari, "the best basso that has hung in Paris for 30 years."

Many who were present at that performance came from farther than 21 miles away. The Ravinia opera pavilion, built in 1905 of pine lumber, has remarkably fine acoustics. Said Otto Kahn, famed banker and music patron: "It is like a fine old Stradivarius violin. . ."