Gatti vs Scala's Loggione and Filianoti: "He's a Terrorist"

Daniele Gatti is very much appreciated by Opera Chic because he floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, because he always shares deep insights with the listener, illuminating nooks and crannies of familiar scores, because he is one acquainted with the night, and for the sheer beauty of his orchestral sound.

He's also a big Internazionale FC fan.

Gatti is a great conductor, one of the few Italians ever invited to Bayreuth, still sore about those infamous boos at la Scala this past Dec. 7, though: in yesterday's Corriere della sera, among other things, the Milanese maestro, new Music Director of Zurich's Opernhaus, always the bridesmaid but never the maid when it comes to the Music Directorship of la Scala, dropped a few bombs in a long interview, including an all-out attack against the tenor Giuseppe Filianoti that Gatti fired a few hours before la prima of Don Carlo in Milan last December:

In Zurich I can count on great singers, the same singers that unfortunately don't want to come to la Scala. Because they're afraid of the audience, at least of that part of the peanut gallery that attacks every opening night, only to mysterioysly disappear afterwards. Booing is rude and unfair, a lack of respect for those who are on stage. The audience has every right to dissent: you can walk out, you can withhold the applause. That would be even harder to take for an artist, but it's more civilized.

La Scala is a complicated, difficult opera house. It's completely different from all others, though: at Scala, success is much more rewarding emotionally. All the operas I have conducted there, I lived those moments so completely, day after day. Including the splendid Don Carlo that that irresponsible tenor, Giuseppe Filianoti, tried to damage this past December 7... That attempt by Filianoti, who was very much aware of his vocal troubles, is the equivalent of a terrorist attack against la Scala. I was frankly surprised that he was hired again for Scala's Verdi Requiem in Berlin. I'll discuss that with Lissner as soon as I can.

He also speaks frankly about Riccardo Muti taking the director job at Opera di Roma:

I wouldn't have accepted the (Opera di Roma) job. No offense but that city has little interest in music. And besides, once you get used to la Scala...

(Background on the Filianoti firing a few hours before the season's opening night here).