Rafael Kubelík was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s music director in the 1950s. More recently, his last name has been a code name for the FX kitchen drama “The Bear.”
Justine Tobiasz/WBEZ
Rafael Kubelík had two bouts of fame in Chicago.
The first was as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s fifth music director, leading the orchestra from 1950 to 1953, as a young conductor brought in to help an institution in need of a new identity.
The second happened more recently and didn’t last long. It saw his Czech surname printed on bright pink filming notices that peppered Chicago neighborhoods. It didn’t take long for people to figure out “Kubelik” was a code name to disguise shooting locations for “The Bear.”
Recently, the hit FX show seems to have dropped Kubelík and been using “Windy City Law” as its ruse, according to filming permits and social media.
CSO archivist Frank Villella calls it a “wonderful surprise” to hear a Kubelík buzz.
“If it encourages somebody to say, ‘Oh, who was that?’ they look it up, see it’s a CSO thing and say, ‘Let’s go to a concert,’ ” Villella says. “I don’t know that that will actually happen, but any PR is good PR.”
Code names are common on film and TV projects. “The Bear” has struggled to keep a low profile since it began shooting seasons three and four around Chicago in February. The show’s stars Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri have been spotted everywhere from Kasama to the lakefront.
It isn’t clear why the show used the name “Kubelik” to throw fans off their trail. FX didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In Czech, the name translates to “bucket.”
Villella says there have been social media posts suggesting that White looks like Kubelík — though you’d have to squint to mistake the 20th century maestro for the star of this spring’s Calvin Klein underwear campaign.
Or maybe someone saw a parallel between Kubelík’s efforts to reinvent the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and White’s Carmy character’s efforts to reinvent his family’s fast-casual restaurant into a fine-dining establishment.
Villella says the maestro’s work deserves attention. Looking over sheet music, recordings and other material, he says, “I think these recordings still hold up even though the recording technology has changed so much since the early 1950s. He’s worth a second look. He’s worth a third look.”
Born in 1914 in what’s now the Czech Republic, Rafael Kubelík came from musical stock — his father, Jan Kubelík, was an esteemed Czech violinist who performed in Chicago the year before his son was born. The younger Kubelík made his U.S. conducting debut at the CSO in 1949, a year before he became music director.
The CSO had big shoes to fill after longtime music director Frederick Stock died in 1942. It would have three music directors in seven years, Kubelík being the third. A proponent of music from his homeland, Kubelík programmed many new pieces and led the symphony in its first televised performance. His symphony-led recordings for Mercury Records are still in print.
But Kubelík’s time in Chicago was short. Eventually, the CSO hired Fritz Reiner, who reigned as maestro for a decade and helped to define the orchestra’s sound.
Kubelík returned to the CSO several times as a guest conductor before his death in 1996. An obituary in The New York Times called his tenure in Chicago “brief” and “unhappy.”
Kubelík went on to lead the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich for nearly 20 years.