by Stephanie Manning
LOOKING AHEAD:
This rainy start to the week has no concerts in store, but there’s plenty to look forward to coming up. Here are some highlights.
The Cleveland Orchestra opens their 2025–26 season on Thursday with Ravel’s Bolero. Franz Welser-Möst takes the podium, marking the beginning of his penultimate year as music director. (Photo credit: Extraordinaire Photos)
University concerts abound, with free offerings from Oberlin, CIM, and Baldwin Wallace. Plus, the Cleveland Silent Film Festival presents F.W. Murnau’s Faust, reimagined with a live heavy metal score. For more information, visit our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
Since it’s Monday, most Broadway theaters are dark today, observing the traditional day off given to cast and crew. But in 1964, September 22 was a Tuesday — show day along the Great White Way. That evening, the lights went up on the premiere of a new musical: Fiddler on the Roof, the now-classic adaptation of Sholem Aleichem’s Yiddish stories about “Tevye the Dairyman.”
The acclaimed production — with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein — became the first Broadway musical to surpass 3,000 performances. It won nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical, with beloved songs including “Tradition” and “To Life” (L’Chaim).
In the decades since, multiple Broadway and West End revivals have followed. Some readers may have attended the Cleveland Play House staging in April and May of this year — a run that was extended by popular demand. Watch the West End cast perform “Sunrise, Sunset” and the “Bottle Dance” at the 2025 Olivier Awards here.
The show also spawned a movie adaptation in 1971, directed by Norman Jewison with music conducted and adapted by John Williams. The sounds of the famous fiddling came courtesy of violinist Isaac Stern, who died on this date in 2001. Hear him play Williams’ “Cadenza and Fantasy,” written specifically for the film, during the opening credits here.
