It takes range to be the artistic director of Sommerfest. Consider that Andrew Litton hits the ground July 18 with a concert full of Strauss waltzes and returns the next night to lead the Grieg Piano Concerto. On July 31, Litton brings jazz legend Terence Blanchard into the mix, and two days later, he's directing a semistaged production of Verdi's "La Traviata."

"What's nice is that they aren't all on the same night," Litton said from his Westchester home outside New York. "Seriously, it helps that with a world-class orchestra, you don't have to explain what Verdi sounds like. They get it. And with Strauss they've had a quarter century with him."

Litton, who just renewed his contract with Sommerfest through 2011, opens his sixth season at the helm of the Minnesota Orchestra's summer music festival this weekend. He'll oversee a program intentionally diverse yet steeped in the Viennese tradition in which Sommerfest was birthed in 1980. After a few rocky years at the beginning of this decade, Sommerfest is on solid ground financially. Attendance has risen in each of the last three years and Litton feels the adventurous spirit is in full flower after seasons that were curbed by cautious bean counters.

"Right now I think we've got a winning formula," he said. "Part of the process of the last few years was rebuilding. We've reached the top of that mountain and now we're ready to reach the next one, the higher one."

Litton's Sommerfest roots go back to 1984, when then-artistic director Leonard Slatkin asked him to assist for a week. He loved the challenge of trying to put on 17 concerts in two weeks and jumped at the chance to guest-conduct again in 2001. When the orchestra approached him about the vacant position, he said he absolutely was interested.

"My fundamental goal was to get the feeling back to the 1980s," he said. "Let's get back to that and put the focus on everyone having a great time."

That was the vision. The reality was that Sommerfest was in danger of going under when Litton took over in 2003. He was told to either "fix this, or it disappears." Deducing that if the festival disappears, so does his summer job, Litton set out a plan.

"The first thing I said was, 'You're paying people a decent fee. You cannot pay a winter fee,' " he said. The orchestra capped fees for guest performers. Then he did the same with the conducting staff, relying on in-house talent. With the overhead reduced, he set his sights on programming. People want feel-good music, he reasoned.

"You'll notice a trend in my programming that the most adventurous stuff is in the chamber music," he said. "It's been remarkable because the audiences have exploded, going from 150 people to 900 people at a concert."

The third element was Litton's love of jazz.

"I think what [jazz musicians] do has the naturalness and freedom that classic musicians wish they had," he said. "It's America's and the music that's closest to the ability and creativity of what we do."

Lastly, Litton wanted to pump up opera, a budget buster in the best of times. There is the legendary story of 2005, when Litton wanted to stage "Salome," but the marketing department insisted on "Carmina Burana." Sure enough, the Orff blockbuster produced a standing-room-only crowd. With a greater financial cushion now, will he push for staging the Richard Strauss opera?

"Oh gosh, I'm going to work on it," he said.

His spare time

Litton stays rather busy when he's here for Sommerfest -- either conducting, rehearsing or jetting off to another weekend commitment. He'd like to catch Osmo Vänskä conducting Finnish music but he's obligated at the Interlochen music camp in Michigan. He'd love to see Doc Severinsen but there's a wedding in Virginia that weekend. When he's here, though, he doesn't have much free time.

"Mostly it's agonizing over the next night's program," he said. "And on Traviata week, we're rehearsing all day and night. I have three completely different programs in a row and far too few hours in the day. But I try to find other things to do. The Mall of America is on my GPS."

He also likes to watch other shows. He's particularly excited about New York Voices, a group that will sing the music of Paul Simon. Then, there is the chance to play with Vänskä in a chamber setting. It won't happen this year, but wouldn't it make sense to pair the two, Litton at the piano and Vänskä on clarinet in a duet?

"I'd consider doing that," he said.

And in the meantime, he'll have a bratwurst and a beer (after work).

"All you have to do is look at me to see that I like to do that," he said. "And Vincent restaurant late at night. These are little traditions that every summer I look forward to."

As for the growing and rebounding reputation of the Orchestra under Vänskä, Litton said the news reverberates in New York and Europe.

"That chattering is going on and it's really wonderful to hear," he said. "The sense of being with a winning team helps attract the right guest artists."

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299