Opera Chic

New Music, Part II: Il Matrimonio Inaspettato In Salzburg, Paisiello & Muti & Orchestra Cherubini Rawk The Mozarthaus @ Whitsun Festival

O.K., first things first.

The simple fact that, for once, Naples was at the center of an important international cultural event – the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg -- instead of just another weird, saddening scandal (the most recent: that thing about the mountains of uncollected trash strewn all over the city and left there to quietly rot for months in the streets – Italy is not technically part of the Third World but no one, it seems, told the politicians who run the country, and more than a few of the people who inhabit it) should earn Riccardo Muti (it's Riccardo with 2 C's, by the way), just-named Music Director of the CSO -- a huge thank-you from his fellow Italians, esp. from his fellow Neapolitans – -regardless of the degree of their personal interest in classical music.

Because he gave Naples, his city, a beautiful gift: "We'll breathe Naples history", he promised -- hence, Salzburg/Naples as twin cities in the name of great music. Muti is the MC of the Whitsun Festival since last year, in the name if Naples, having extracted lost scores from the archives of the San Pietro A Maiella Conservatorio.

OC is coming to you live from Salzburg aka Mutiburg (this from our report from last year) ...although barely breathing from too many slices of estherhazy and sacher torte that are making previous sweaty hours on the treadmill redundant, but we're on vacation so it's okay to flood the system with mountains of unsweetened whipped cream and sugarysweet confections...and after hearing tonight Giovanni Paisiello's Il Matrimonio Inaspettato, opera buffa from 1779, we're ready to sink into downy blankets and bedding to dream lovely melodic sonnets filled with buttercream and espresso.

For now, it should suffice to say that Riccardo Muti proved again to the eagerly-listening audience that flocked to this years Salzbuger Pfingstfestspiele that he is poised for world domination, to show the new skool how the old skool rolls, to shame everyone at their game, to smash the backboard in a thousand glassy bits, and blowup the deathstar. 

Last year it was Domenico Cimarosa's Il Ritorno di Don Calandrino; this years it's Paisiello's delcious composition, technically a "dramma giocoso" in two acts but it's downright opera buffa, not that there's anything wrong about that: Paisiello is an unsung genius of Beethovenian proportions, the man chosen by Napoleon to write his Coronation music, for Pete's sake, and instead is barely known as some opera buffa guy (pretty good stuff such as La Serva Padrona, but Paisiello's masterpiece is in fact a tragedy, Fedra).

In Il Matrimonio Inaspettato Paisiello weaves so many familiar lines...from Gluck to Paisiello's successor as King Of Comedy And Misunderstood Opera Seria Genius, Gioachino Rossini (who took Paisiello's Barbiere and turned it into something entirely different, and obv greater, but let's not forget that paisiello's Barbiere is a masterpiece on its own merit) to Mozart (who, as so many geniuses, robbed the older Paisiello blind) spinning and intertwining the melodic lines.

Muti's read of the score left nothing to be desired, the most controlled, driven, seamless push and pull, which his Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini lovingly embraced, following Maestro Muti's every minor twitch -- and let us praise those kids from the Orchestra dreamed by Muti out of nothing, who have recently triumphed with a Don Pasquale in concert form in the Musikverein.

The opera took the familiar Rossini Barbiere form as recitativi accompanied by the harpsicord punctuated by arias, duets, etc. It was much different than Cimarosa's Il ritorno di Don Calandrino, regardless of the fact that the two composers were integral figures of the Neopolitan School and the operas were written within one year of each other -- Calandrino's had a much richer first act (but a lamer second), more characters, and a very entertaining taste for really smart wordplay, plus a bunch of really pretty quartetti that Matrimonio lacks -- but Paisiello's opera is a much subtler, less flashy, darker, and much more ingeniously conceived beast.

The basic story is entertaining, involving a countess and her plan to marry into the nouveaux riches injecting much needed cash in her noble family's coffers -- culminating in trickery and eventually a deliciously senseless opera buffa-style double-wedding. Between the plot are crafted dry bits of typical opera buffa: clumsy, sword-wielding pranks and gratuitous costume disguises (all directed with mercifully straight, not-that-hammy restraint by director Andrea de Rosa. It all worked to the favor of the libretto, which had many moments of brilliance.   

The standout star (aside from Muti's incredible conducting -- driven, at times lightning-fast ) was Austrian baritone Markus Werba's Giorgino, the son of the nouveaux riche farmer Tulipano. Werba's acting and comic timing were perfect, matching his brilliant and creamy voice (his big debut happened in 2005, here in Salzburg, as Papageno in The Magic Flute conducted by Muti and directed by Graham Vick that shocked the Salzburg old fartz -- Queen of the Night as the good one and Sarastro as the bad guy, yay 4 Vick). Italian diction? As good as his Italian-born sidekick, really.

Back to Matrimonio: Act I, Scene III's -- the cavatina 'Credea Nina cara' was outstanding not only in the depth of Werba's lovelorn promise, but how well paired he was to Muti's delicate and lovely conducting. The melodies ducked in and out, creating a heartbreaking interlude between the chaos of the comedy -- the creamy depths of Orchestra Cherubini really amazed us.

Alessia Nadin, the young Italian mezzosoprano who sang always correctly as Vespina, the clever and rich farmer's daughter who impersonates the Countess Olympia and therefore tricks Tulipano in the hand of his son, was on point, but OC wasn't a huge fan of her color. A bit too mousy in tone and really on the brassy side of mezzo.

The Sicilian baritone Nicola Alaimo, who sang with Falstaffian gusto as the elder Tulipano, father of Giorgino, embraced the role perfectly, energetically slapping his son across the face dozens of times, bravely not fighting a hilarious duel, but still appealing the humanity of the audience in the final scene when he pleaded for the hand of the Countess in marriage -- il mondo è burla, srsly.

Poor Countess Olympia was sung by the Swiss mezzosoprano Marie-Claude Chappuis. Her gorgeous and light register was cut short by the b o r i n g e s t aria of the entire opera during Act II, her only chance to shine at the small role.

Muti once again gets the most credit for resurrecting from the archives this pleasant and carefree opera, filled with moments of comedy gold (a sword fight between the Tulipano family and the defenders of the Countess was particularly awesome, culminating in a trickery defeat to which Tulipano ignorantly decries 'Vittoria!').

Blissfully controlling the chorus, the orchestra, the principals, mentally rehearsing the Otello he'll do here this coming August 1, and simultaneously walking on a treadmill, Muti again scored a 10-minute long ovation at the end of it all (the other night it was 20 minutes, sez Willy), asking as always his Cherubini kids to follow him on stage to bask in the glory (class act).

Muti has unearthed yet another winning offering from the beyond. Stay tuned for more details and pictures. As if it wasn't already, after winning the CSO position, it's seriously Muti fever here in Salzburg.

A memo to the lucky Chicagoans?

Convince this man to do at least in concert form with the CSO, Paisiello's Fedra. It's musical gold.

Vespina & Giorgino Will Get All Naughty: Muti's Paisiello Goes Down In Salzburg

It's dress rehearsal time at Salzburg's Whitsun Festival for Giovanni Paisiello's Il Matrimonio Inaspettato, forgotten old skooly score dug out of an old dusty Naples library by Riccardo Muti, that premieres on Friday Night.

In the photo above, Alessia Nadin (Vespina) and Markus Werba (Giorgino) get naughty; in the photo below, Nicola Alaimo (Tulipano) and Werba.

In the last image, Werba and Nadin, again. (All fotos, Kalle Tornstrom/Reuters)

Riccardo Muti: You're The Man Now, Dawg!

Big interview in yesterday's Corriere della Sera with Riccardo Muti about his new Chicago job.

The interview (not online 4 u) Muti -- who during his Milan years dreamt up unorthodox events like a famous attempt to bring his orchestra to Lebanon (the trip was canceled days before leaving Italy for security reasons) and even to play in a prison -- explains that Chicago will be the ideal stage for new ideas:

"In a country as multiethnic and multicultural as the U.S., I intend to bring music out of concert halls and opera houses, to reach new audiences, even those who are now very far from classical music".

But the maestro also went back to the beginning of his career, in 1967, and gave a touching portrait of himself 40 years ago, Muti at 26:

"I barely earned a living as piano teacher at the Conservatorio when the manager of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino invited me there to conduct a concert with the great Richter! I thought I was dreaming. With the Maggio orchestra, I hit it off perfectly, the concert was a success, and I was invited to conduct again. Then the Orchestra, which needed a music director, chose me, a kid. They took a chance on me. But it was a different era, a beautiful madness, '68. There was great passion, great energy back then, it was in the air."

"The Maggio Musicale gave me for the first time a steady income, and the chance to be financially stable enough to marry Cristina. We still had to be careful with money. We found an apartment close to the theatre, we didn't even have a fridge, but I knew that the thing I wanted the most was a piano. I bought one and paid in installments for it, it took me two years. That piano has been a lifetime companion, I still have it, after 40 years, in my home, it's the piano I play and work with".

"In the theater we breathed freedom, the first opera I conducted was Masnadieri, then Puritani, Cavalleria, Pagliacci. And the Guillaume Tell, the complete score: we began at 8PM and finished at 2AM, and then we went out to party with the audience, everybody chanted 'Viva Rossini! Viva l'Italia!' Florence is my family. And the Maggio Musicale, to this day, I consider to be 'my' orchestra... I love Dante and I collect rare editions of the Divina Commedia, what a place to start a career ... All our kids were born in Florence".

In the (old) photo above, Muti with daughter Chiara, the actress and lucky owner of those hawt Riccardo+Cristina genes.

Now that the Neapolitan conductor, via Florence, London (Philharmonia), Philly, Milan (Scala) and New York is a Chicago man, we think that even if Muti doesn't particularly like hip-hop, the right way to welcome him to that city of awesome rappers (Common, Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West) is this tribute page: (WARNING: page loads a rap music mp3 omg rap) Muti's  Top Dawg in Chicago. Welcome to Chi-town, M'DAWG!

(& have you seen Andrew Patner's brilliant Muti Fun Facts?)

THIS JUST IN: Riccardo Muti Named New Director at Chicago Symphony

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra said Monday that it had engaged Riccardo Muti as its next music director, luring the charismatic Italian maestro — one of a dwindling band of podium eminences — to the United States and adding a layer of luster to the city's cultural profile. Mr. Muti, 66, will take over in the 2010-11 season. His contract will run for five years, and he is expected to conduct a minimum of 10 weeks a season and lead tours. "I would like to make this last engagement as music director in my life something that can enrich people," Mr. Muti said Monday in his first interview after signing the contract. As recently as last September, Mr. Muti had emphatically rejected the idea of taking over the responsibilities of an American music directorship and all the nonmusical duties the job entails. But his tone shifted after an electric month conducting the orchestra at the start of this season, half in Symphony Hall in Chicago and half on a European tour.

Muti Named New Director at Chicago Symphony

***update***

Andrew Patner, our fav Chicago arts critic @ The View from Here weighs in.

On the WFMT podcast an interview by Patner with Muti from last September, downloadable here

Our Favorite Intermezzo.

Rawking some Bill Tell:

The Chicago Muti Fever hit Japan, too.

*****update*****

Handy infographic on the 9 previous music directors of the CSO here

Ziemlich Schnell: Muti's Bruckner Is On Fire, Smells Like Rossini. Viennese Critics Like It Fast

A very common reading of poor Anton Bruckner's music -- probably due to the zillion quotes re: his deep religious faith and his music's supposed relationship with the Almighty, blah blah blah -- is that his symphonies are supposed to have an essentially mystical, soothing, church music quality -- when he is, in fact, a deeply unsettling, scarily apocalyptic composer (cue Eugen Jochum's reading of the complete symphonies, the one on EMI not the one on DG, that will really change your perception of what Bruckner is all about). This is not to diss the great conductors who -- the great Carlo Maria Giulini comes to mind -- chose the otherworldly path when conducting Bruckner. But there's so much more to Bruckner than that.

Case in question: a conductor not immediately associated (to say the least) with Bruckner: Riccardo Muti. Viennese critics today go ga-ga over Muti's Brucknerian tour de force this past weekend (another show tonight, download programs on .pdf here) at the Musikverein where the Italian maestro has been showing off the Wiener in an apparently incandescent reading of, of all things, Bruckner's wonderful, underrated (among the big boys on the podium it seems to be all about the 6, 7, 8 and 9: boring!) Second Symphony.

According to Der Standard "Riccardo Muti enhanced the Philharmoniker's brilliance once again in Bruckner's Second, managing to make it so fast and clear as to remind one of Rossini... with a finale as operatic as if he were still in charge of la Scala"

The Kurier writes about the "triumph", "maximum perfection" and "absolute precision and passion" in the reading. Wiener Oesterreich raves the "marvelous phrasing" as if Bruckner had been born in Ravenna, where Muti lives.

"How To Make A Crescendo": Muti In Rehearsal

"The difficult part, for the orchestra and the conductor, is to make the crescendo really gradual, to grow slowly: many orchestras just fly up to 10,000 meters and there they stay... If you want to make it affecting, it really has to grow"

Italian language only, click on the top link ("Le prove del concerto di Natale 2005 al Senato Italiano"); a clip (streaming from Muti's official website) from Muti's rehearsal of the 2005 concert in the Italian Senate with the cool kids of Orchestra Cherubini (a .pdf of the program here).

Ravenna With Muti, Temirkanov, Masur, Kirchschlager, Zacharova: Gérard Depardieu Does Berlioz, Elaine Alvarez Sings Rossini

This coming June (from 6/13 to 7/19) the Ravenna Festival unleashes the might of Riccardo Muti & Friends: Muti himself will conduct Berlioz (the Fantastique and Lélio, with Muti BFF Gérard Depardieu as special guest); Muti will also conduct Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Rossini's Stabat Mater (the singers: Olga Borodina, Angela Gheorghiu's glorious understudy last year in Chicago la signorina Elaine Alvarez, Mario Zeffiri, and Ildar Abdrazakov).

Yuri Temirkanov -- aka Opera Chic's Uncle Solly -- will conduct the Bolshoi Orchestra in a Tchaikovsky/Borodin concert, Kurt Masur will lead the Orchestre National de France in a night of Beethoven symphonies (V and VI), 

Other big names: Svetlana Zacharova, Angelika Kirchschlager (a recital).

The full program in .pdf format is here

Abbado's Fidelio In Reggio Emilia; A New Deal With Riccardo Muti

Claudio Abbado is all over the Italian papers this morning -- interviews in Corriere della Sera and Repubblica -- introducing Fidelio (the 1814 version) that opens at Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia on April 6. Amazingly, it's Abbado's first Fidelio -- "Certain operas I need to meditate over for a very long time, it took me twenty years to make Boris Godunov after all", the Milanese maestro says. Between now and 2010 the production will also touch Madrid, Baden-Baden, Ferrara, Aix-En-Provence. It's a shame that this Fidelio has not become the occasion for Abbado's return to Milan after his dismissal from la Scala in 1986 (the orchestra, as they always do, fired him the way they had fired de Sabata once upon a time and the way they would vote Muti out in 2005): but the conductor has torpedoed all the plans to stage his comeback to la Scala with full honors, and has repeated even in these interviews that he has no plan to ever return to Milan (the city has been run by a center-right coalition and a center-right mayor since the mid-1990s, and Abbado is famously very liberal, not to mention, for the bafflement of many of his friends, a big Fidel Castro fan).

Anyway there's something to be said for a guy who, after the kind of monster career Abbado has had and after his illness and all that still has the passion to simply go to the movies -- in this case, Vier Minuten -- and halfway through the film to simply think, this director is perfect for Fidelio; then call the director Chris Kraus -- a opera n00b -- and make it happen. 

Abbado explains how, when the director has the correct understanding of an opera's dramatic structure, being inexperienced in musical theater is not really a problem for a director. And, more importantly, Abbado explains, Kraus "makes the singers act like real actors".

Another very nice touch is that, this coming October, in Bologna, Abbado will conduct Berlioz's Te Deum in a 5,000 seats hall with a monster team of three orchestras -- his Orchestra Mozart,  the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana di Fiesole, and Riccardo Muti's own Orchestra Cherubini.

Many years of supposed bad blood between the two conductors -- the liberal vs the conservative, the champion of 20th century composers vs the champion of the 18th, the Northerner vs the Southerner, blah blah blah -- haven't changed the fact that Abbado was happy to call his colleague and ask him to "lend" him the truly excellent Cherubini kids ("Riccardo did a magnificent job with them", says Abbado). And in fact, even if they're not exactly great friends -- not many conductors love and socialize with their collagues anyway --
they have never hated each other as much as the factions (everything in Italy is split up in factions, it's a centuries-old thang) of their rabid fans would have hoped -- or liked.

So give it up for this pact, in the name of Berlioz, between the two greatest Italian conductors working today, certainly two of the very greatest maestri ever to step on a podium.

Muti: "Save Italy's Small Municipal Bands". And, Il Maestro Hails Totò's Musical Genius

Those who know Riccardo Muti well (Muti who just came down with the flu and bowed out of tonight's concert with the NY Phil, replaced in extremis by Michael Christie) also know that, as difficult and punctilious as he can be, the Maestro, is also a very un-snobbish generous supporter of smalltown municipal bands; he's also a film lover and a comedy fan, also has a very keen -- if often downright earthy -- sense of humor.

He demonstrates both things today in Corriere della Sera, where, in a huge full-page interview, he throws his weight behind the effort to release much-needed additional funding for Italy's small, beautiful municipal bands, little orchestras made up of amateurs and/or semipros that constitute a historic part of Italy's musical legacy.

Muti explains how "they are the only chance, in places that are too small and remote to support an actual opera house or symphony hall, to enjoy the masterpieces of classical music".  The sometimes cranky maestro explains how he likes to follow, whenever he can, performances of such small municipal bands -- he's a honorary citizen of a small Lombardy town where he often goes to listen to the local band -- and gives great props to the kids of one of his favorite bands, Banda di Delianuova: "A wonderful brass section, kids with extraordinary artistic and human discipline: they're as refined as the graduates of the most prestigious colleges at Oxford; they have love and passion. They have dignity".

Verdi himself, the maestro explains in the interview, "owes so much to the municipal bands he used to listen to as a boy: he even gave them an hommage, for King Duncan in Macbeth". Then Muti traces other hommages to that brassy, peculiar sound: "Before Verdi, Bellini, Berlioz. Spontini in the second act of Agnese di Hohenstaufen uses a band in lieu of an organ and that is one of the most sublime moments in that masterpiece".

On June 14 at the Ravenna Festival, where orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker perform, Muti will conduct, "with pride", a municipal band from Southern Italy, Banda di Delianuova, a small town on the outskirts of Reggio Calabria, in a selection of Verdi and Bellini.

And Muti also gives a deserved shoutout to comedy film legend Totò, the Aristophanes of Italian film so shamefully ignored abroad (OC concedes that Totò's brand of comedy -- especially his fantastic puns -- is very language-based and therefore impossible to translate properly): "A great actor, a poet, the man who wrote Malafemmena. In Totò A Colori he plays a band conductor and his gesture is at the same time hilarious and spot-on, playful but so precise, he evokes the sound he is about to elicit from the band. Had he chosen to become a conductor, he would have been one of the greatest  of the 20th century. It'd be wise to play that movie clip for the students of conducting... his pizzicati, his legati, his staccati. One understands that gesture is in direct contact with sound".

Chailly For Change: How To Solve The CSO Dilemma

Waiting for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to signal its intentions about its next music director has been more prolonged than this year's presidential primaries, and very nearly as suspenseful.

Our money's on a (apparent) dark horse: Riccardo Chailly.

Excellent Italian repertoire, deep knowledge of the 20th Century, great experience at the Concertgebouw. Yes he can.

Ioan Holender Nukes La Scala: Attacks "Envy" Of Scala GM Stephane Lissner "Who Cannot Read Music": We Have The Great Conductors And La Scala Doesn't. Vienna vs La Scala Kung Fu Fightin'

It's unusual to see such public vitriol at such high levels, even in the famously snarky world of opera.

A few days ago Scala GM Stéphane Lissner had snarked, in the press, Vienna and Munich, "where they don't rehearse as much and this has recently been the cause of substandard shows", in Italian "spettacoli di basso livello", literally translated as "low-level shows".  "A Vienna ho visto un Don Giovanni di assoluta routine. Per il signor Holender non è mai troppo tardi per imparare", Lissner told Italian paper La Stampa: "In Vienna I saw a substandard Don Giovanni. For Mr. Holender is never too late to learn".

Yesterday Ioan Holender, Vienna's Staatsoper director has shot back with surprising vitriol, as reported in today's papers.

"This (attack) is unprecedented between opera houses: it is very embarrassing to engage in a dispute with someone who cannot read music but I understand Lissner needs to distract the Italian press from what is happening -- or better yet, not happening -- at la Scala".

"To cancel a new production (ed: the Andrea Chenier Opera Chic wrote extensively about) because the director and almost all of the cast have vanished is quite unusual and unbelievable for a opera house. With such attacks against my work Lissner disqualified himself, since he knows that I have been leading for 16 years the glorious Vienna opera with more than 60 operas in repertoire and more than 300 shows every season. Monsieur Lissner's envy is understandable when one sees that these days on the Vienna podium we have Christian Thielemann, Seji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti and Zubin Mehta, who are among the world's greatest conductors. They are not at la Scala where, unfortunately, there is only Lissner: this is sad".

If we were Brits, we'd totally say: Blimey Guv'nor!

Così Fan Muti, Part II: Kaiser Riccardo's Spring Tour '08 Is On @ Full Blast

A few nites ago, Opera Chic, flipping through the channels, found on Classica la Ceci singing Fiordiligi, and that's usually a treat (no we r not Ceci-haterZ @ all, hails naw, deal wit it). But then, OC immediately started to tinker with her plasma's audio settings, thinking something must have been off since the orchestra sound came out incredibly tinny, empty, flat. And soooooooo mortally slow.

Then the director cut to the orchestra pit and there he was, Niki Harnoncourt, and we then knew the audio settings were OK, as in fact they were. Opera's favorite taxidermist had gutted Così the same way he gutted Nozze @ Salzburg two years ago, and we have to say Così, usually three hour something, lasted about nine hours. Or so it felt.

So how we pined for some seriously awesome Mozart, airy and light and witty and FAST and crystal-clear the way Mozart-DaPonte has got to be. Riccardo Muti's Mozart, for example.

The music of chance actually decreed that, as we were suffering through Harnoncourt's reading of the score, Muti in the flesh was showing off his Wiener in Wien conducting Così Fan Tutte (in De Simone's staging) with a cast that made us tingle in all the right places: la Frittoline as Fiordiligi, Angelika Kirchschlager as Dorabella, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo as Guglielmo and Francesco Meli (la Fittolina's boi) as Ferrando.

Yeah, Muti is showing Vienna how it's done these days, exercising the usual ownage of the audience with standing Os, moshing, celebratory rounds of AK-47s ammo being shot during curtain calls, riots outside of the sold-out venue, standing room tickets being exchanged for newborn babies on the blak market, you know the drill.

And we so wish we were there, getting insulin shocks one after another in the inevitable marathon of Sachertorte eating, crossing the street from our hotel to the Staatsoper to check out Muti, la Frittolina, Angie, Brando and the rest of the gang.

Interestingly, Muti is about to launch a spring offensive of concerts, operas, tour, parties, and so forth: just back from the States where he conducted the NYPhil, he is now in Vienna for Così, on March 8 he'll conduct his wonder kids of Orchestra Cherubini in Vienna for Don Pasquale (been there done that), in April he'll go on tour with the Wiener, and in May he'll introduce at the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg Paisiello's Il Matrimonio Inaspettato. On May 17 and 18, on to Florence to celebrate in two concerts the 40th anniversary of his debut with the Maggio Musicale orchestra.

Good to see that there's a lot of life outside of la Scala. It's always healthy to remember that.

Bring It On: All Hail Riccardo Muti II, The Future King

Mad props to the Muti family: maestro Riccardo Muti is a grandaddy now! 36 year old Francesco Muti -- the insanely hawt son of il maestro and of signora Cristina Mazzavillani Muti  -- and his wife Susanna have had a baby last week. The baby has been named after his world-famous grandaddy.

Let's all welcome baby Riccardo and let's hope that he has inherited not only the family good looks but also his grandaddy musical talent!

Muti & Zeffirelli & Dessì-Armiliato & DeChirico Take The City Of Rome

Franco Zeffirelli (he's set to direct Tosca) and Riccardo Muti (he'll conduct Otello) and Daniela Dessì & Fabio Armiliato (La Fanciulla del West) are among the marquee names of the 2008 stagione at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Giorgio De Chirico, from the great artist studio in the sky, will be the set designer for a ballet marathon that sounds extremely cool. And then a rare Mascagni, a Dvorak, and more.

GM Francesco Ernani, at the Campidoglio, has introduced to the press this morning the very interesting program: Zeffirelli's spanking new Tosca premieres on January 14, Fiorenza Cedolins and Renato Bruson in the cast; Puccini will also be honored (2008 is the 150th anniversary of the maestro's birth) with La fanciulla del West (premieres on April 8), with the wonderful  lovebirds Daniela Dessì (as Minnie) and Fabio Armiliato (as, huh, Dick). Dessì, obviously THE Puccini soprano of this day and age, is a wonderful gift to Puccini fans for il maestro's birthday party in Rome (if only la Scala had cast her and Armiliato in their Andrea Chenier next season, they'd have a great party, too).

Rome's 2008 cartellone has 16 operas and 23 ballets, including the summer season at Terme di Caracalla. The ballet season will be inaugurated on January 30 with a very interesting Giorgio De Chirico extravaganza: GDC's sets will be used for La giara by Alfredo Casella, Stravinsky's Apollon Musagete, Le Bal by Vittorio Rieti, Bacchus et Ariane by Albert Roussel -- everything will be reproduced based on the original designs and the original materials.

In February, Rusalka -- some Antonin Dvorak to soothe our ears (Gunter Neohold conductor, Ludek Gplat direktor, Angelas Blanca Gulin as the nymphtastic Rusalka)

October 7, 2008, is the day of a really delicious forgotten Mascagni (OC is a fangirl and if you aren't, boo): Amica, a work that had its premiere in Rome in 1907 (and here, bafflingly, we have to announce the debut at Opera di Roma for Andrea Bocelli, in Mascagni's gem -- wtf indeed). The off-tha-hooc coolness of Oscar couple Ezio Frigerio - Franca Squarciapino will do sets and costumes for Rosenkavalier; and Riccardo Muti, deliciously, in a meanie mean p1mpslap to la Scala, his old workplace, has moved the premiere of his Rome Otello up to December 6, 2008; stealing the Scala thunder, because the Milanese opera house the following day will have its La Prima with Don Carlo, conducted by Daniele Gatti, Stéphane Braunschweig director.

And then the obvious question is, what would you rather see, Muti's Otello (with a supersecret -- OC knows he's a Eastern European young man with a very secksy demeanor -- new singer personally picked by Riccardo Muti) or Gatti's Don Carlos? Excitement in Rome or blak ties and gloom in Milan?

Muti Pours a 40 For Maestro Verdi

Now Opera Chic understands that with her Vienna trip and all she'll now have to pull a Jack Bauer to go back to posting in her usual post-machina fashion, but over this weekend of -- finally -- unpacking back at her Milan headquarters she was delighted to discover that, as she was listening to Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato teaching a lesson to those stuffy Austrians about how you should sing Manon Lescaut, that same night in Parma, Maestro Muti had shown the delightful Parma audience how you should conduct Verdi's Requiem (with Barbara Frittoli among the soloists!!!).

Muti, "the world's hottest maestro", always the man of solemn, theatrical gestures, interrupted the thunderous applause that washed over the theater at the end of the concert with a decisive gesture of his hand, and finally said: "This applause is for Maestro Verdi". heh.

This, in Parma -- "Verdi Country".

Obviously, the crowd lost its collective peWp, and a huge stadium-sized ovation rumbled through the hall.

re: the Chicago Tribune's sweet editorial ("It's time for CSO to offer maestro Muti the podium"), we still don't think he'll accept, as flattered as he obviously is by all the Chicago love that's been raining down upon him.

First New York, Then Salzburg; In 2009, The Moon

Since the hawt mess of Salzburg 2007 has seen a record number of singer cancellations --  for all kinds of reasons, OK, from bad diplomacy (Shicoff) to bad larigintis (Anna Niet), from bad planning (Garanca)  to just bad luck -- poor Jurgen Flimm, that sweet punching bag of a man, has wisely decided that since singers are such unreliable fellas, he might as well give all teh powah to conductors. In this case, wisely, Flimm has chosen to rely heavily on Riccardo Muti. Who, after bagging that sweet official/unofficial guest conductor gig at the NY Phil has been silently promoted Kaiser of much of the good stuff that Salzburg is planning.

Next year, besides conducting Verdi's Otello, in Salzburg he'll conduct the event of the festival, the celebration of Herbert Von Karajan's 100th birthday -- for the occasion, Muti will conduct Brahms's German Requiem  (a first, strangely, for the  66 year old conductor).

But what's really awesome is that Muti, in 2009, will be in charge of the commemoration of the bicentennial of Franz Joseph Haydn's death. The program has not yet been made public, but it is very likely that, besides the Creation -- a work that Muti has conducted in the past with amazing results -- the Italian maestro will also conduct a Haydn opera -- the title that has been in play, amazingly enough, is Il mondo della Luna.

Opera Chic has missed Salzburg this summer, regretfully -- for noble reasons: nostalgia for the US, other commitments, Santa Fe, the Barney sale @ Santa Monica Airport, shopping at Kitsons -- but we are so going, if not next summer, in 2009.

Gérard + Riccardo BFFE&E!!!111

This morning in Salzburg, Maestro Muti has conducted the Wiener P. in an all-Berlioz-all-teh-time program: the Fantastique (not Opera Chic's favorite piece) and Lélio. With recitation by that wonderful fatty, Gèrard Depardieu, maestro of acting.

More later when our Salzburg spies report back.

^^^^UPDATE^^^^

More than two hours and 15 minutes of music and words, Depardieu sweetly hammy, Muti surprisingly (thank heavens) relaxed and upbeat: and a looooooooong ovation at then end of the concert.

A concert that hasn't been televised because Depardieu, for no apparent reason, refused to agree with the releases ($$$$) and withheld his permission to broadcast the concert.

:(

Maestro Muti Is Watching You!

OMG NO1 IS SAFE!

 

Muti Shows Off the Wiener

Palazzo Mauro de André was built outside of downtown Ravenna in 1990 for big sports events and conventions, and is capable of holding 3,800 spectators. Probably 3,799 showed-up last night in Ravenna for Riccardo Muti and the Wiener Philharmoniker in a weird Austria + Spain flavored program, Schubert + Mozart and Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody and De Falla's Sombrero, like eating Wiener Schnitzel washed down with some gazpacho made by a French guy or something. ne way...

The crowd packing into the balloon-topped structure with such enthusiasm that the concerto started 20 minutes late to accommodate the swamped at-call windows, the claustrophobic line to get in (it was like being wedged into a slightly more elegant NYC Times Square Countdown-to-New-Years-crowd), and the process to find seats.

Muti was in high spirits, dressed in frac, much more comfortable on stage than I had seen him in NYC, or in Ravenna for Don Pasquale, and much happier than he was when a OC friend saw him in Florence last month for Gluck's Orfeo e Euridice -- after 30 years of special relationship with the snarky Viennese musicians, he really works SO well with his Wieners. sry. You can't even imagine all the wiener jokes that you have been spared by second edits.

First up was Schubert's Die Zauberharfe Overture D 644, a piece of flowery Apollinean beauty (there's a killer Fritz Lehmann version out on DG) and a gorgeous, rich sound swelling from the orchestra. Three omg omg females filled-in the ranks of the boys club and their sausage-fest: two strings, and one on harp. What is this blasphemy?!

Next was Mozart's Haffner Symphony (KV385), which is still giving OC little goose-bumps in all the right places. Muti -- the most extraordinarily intuitive conductor alive -- is just brilliant light and gorgeous force when he conducts Mozart -- he just gets it, in a unique manner -- he just gets it right with his scary, unique bond with the composer who was "charged with such boundlessness", in Muti's words, making the works seem as light as wind -- un soave zeffiretto, fo'reals. I swear Mozart talks to him at night when he's in his Moroccan-style bed with a tower of pillows at his feet, and whispers conducting pointers in his ear. And last night when the andante began, after a few bars you really thought the entire stage was about to lift itself up and levitate, fly away toward the basketball arena's dome. It's unreal his Mozart. Muti breaks your heart with Mozart.

Then time for intermission, which OC drifted through, still under the influence of Muti's Haffner. After the break, that mix of unabashed brilliance and utter vulgarity, Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody, which we are not huge fans, but the Wiener flaunted superb technique and wonderful mastery of tempi changes, dynamics, and style.

The last work on the program was the super-banal Manuel de Falla's El sombrero de tres picos...which was so boring that I stopped listening at some point and started thinking about making a chess set or something out of wood or clay or cork that would include chess piece in the likeness of all the great maestri, including debate over who would be the King & Queen (does Plácido or Fischer-Dieskau count?), all the way down to the pawns. Anyway, the concert ended in an enthusiastic climax, shouts of bravi and bravo for both maestro and Wiener.

Then after a bunch of ovations (half of the floor gave him a standing ovation), old bankers mooning the parts of the audience that didn't join in, along with bejeweled old ladies waving big foam hands with "MUTI RAWRKS" written on the palm.

Muti then spoke to the audience in soft Italian. He said that it's been a peculiar program, and with the set list beginning with Schubert, he would choose Johann Strauss as an encore, because Schubert opened the door for him. And then he was like 'here is the Wiener and we are going to play Strauss for you'. At that point, he turned around to face his orchestra, but an old lady's voice broke loose in the silence with a strained 'bravo'. Muti didn't turn around to confront the audience, but like an impatient father, he dropped his hand to his side and motioned for her diminuendo. omg so hawt. like emperor ming with an execution order or something.

So the Wiener played Johann Strauss's jr overture to Indigo And The 40 Thieves laying thick their famous rubato like Sacher Torte chocolate, and OC can count herself among the special who have heard the VPO's rubato live. Of course, it was breathtaking. They were like, "We're the Wiener. Strauss is what we do. Deal with it."

More standing ovations, applause, and then everyone disbanded to go eat some agnolini. yum yum yum. At the end of the night, it was clear that we were all  -\(º_o)/-wned by MAESTRO MUTI!

How Did We Spend Our Sunday: Listening To Wiener Philharmoniker + Riccardo Muti in Ravenna

In a sold-out Ravenna basketball-arena-turned-into-auditorium, the
Wiener Philharmoniker and Riccardo Muti have just flaunted some impressively massive musical muscle (and really, the strange program itself -- Schubert, Mozart, Ravel, DeFalla + an impromptu Johann Strauss encore was worth the 300 km. trip)

Needless to say, Opera Chic was there and you weren't.

Full review, pictures, inside gawssip and much more coming tomorrow. Now Opera Chic is tired, overfed, drunk with that unique creamy sound of the VPO strings and their to-die-for rubato, and she needs to rest on Pratesi linens.

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4, 3rd Mvt -- Claudio Arrau, Riccardo Muti cond., Philadelphia Orchestra, 1984

Rehearsals:

Muti Fever Grips Salzburg

There was no denying that Salzburg was suffering from a severe case of MUTI FEVER this past weekend, slapping his face on posters and leaving profiles in every newspaper...but we didn't mind! In fact, OC snapped a few of these Muti-sightings...

(above: This banner was hanging right outside of Tomaselli Cafe, where we spent mornings cornering the cake ladies.)

(above: this one was at the excellent Musikhaus Katholnigg where we always find lots of treasures and Austria-only releases).

(above: fittingly in front of the Haus für Mozart, but it's actually been up like this since February)

Standing Ovation in Church: People Will Go To Hell And It Will Be Riccardo Muti's Fault

Opera Chic, who had to rush back to Milan to catch the Barenboim piano recital, couldn't stay in Salzburg to catch the newly-discovered Scarlatti Oratorio A Quattro Voci that closed the 2007 Pentecost Festival. But she hears that it was a triumph, such that a standing ovation -- even if the performance took place in church -- was in order.

And the audience -- in uber-Catholic Austria -- stood!

Now apparently Jesus is p*ssed, and all those sinners are going to haell! And it'll be Maestro Muti's, Scarlatti's, the Orchestra Cherubini's, and the soloists fault!

Repent! SINN3RS!

"Il Ritorno di Don Calandrino" in Salzburg, ouverture .mp3

A kind opera lover present at Riccardo Muti's performance of Il Ritorno di Don Calandrino in Salzburg sent us this nice link to a .mp3 file of the ouverture. A cheerfully rough recording, it starts abruptly, a bit noisily, then it gets good. 

But you had to be there of course.

New Music: Don Calandrino Comes Back, Burns Salzburg Down

Opera Chic didn’t really want to spend Memorial weekend (well, it’s Memorial weekend in the US, Italians couldn’t care less, but whatevs) in sticky-hot-as-if-it’s-already-July Milan, so she hopped on to cool (even too cool, OC was greeted by a hellish, if short, hail storm) Salzburg like a happy bunny.

Because since all the cool kids are always mentioning “new music”, Opera Chic decided to treat herself to some deinitely new music – music none of you guys has ever really heard. Music that’s 229 years new, actually.

Because the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg has begun last Friday with Riccardo Muti conducting a lost opera by Domenico Cimarosa, Il Ritorno di Don Calandrino, a score that he has found in the archives of the San Pietro a Maiella Conservatorio.

Tonight, OC has just returned to her hotel after seeing the second performance. Long review coming tomorrow, on Tuesday at the latest.

Suffice to say, Cimarosa's tight relationship with Mozart was evident -- it's an opera about two women lusting after the same man, so similar at times to Rossini's l'Italiana in Algeri (the general tone of playfulness) and to Mozart's own Così Fan Tutte (the structure built around the relationship of two couples with a fifth character).

The libretto is a witty little kitty that, unfortunately for nonItalian speaking audiences, has so many delightful -- really extraordinary -- wordplays easily lost in supertitles translation.

Muti's conducting, as always with this kind of material, the material he's most comfortable with and that he dominates completely, was a miracle of airy splendor: his ability to lead the kids (students) of his creature, the Cherubini orchestra, to a performance perfectly suitable to a historic venue such as Salzburg, was amazing. His talent for quicksilver, driven pulse and for nevertheless pointing out the moments of sadness behind the slapstick of most of the action, was another miracle.

Before going to baed, just one suggestion to a smart tenor who really wants to look good: call Muti on his cellphone (he doesn't do email and does not even know what an iPod is) and ask him to send you a copy of the score: Scene 6, act II, begins with the tenor aria “La donna è sempre instabile” (“La donna è sempre instabile / sempre si cangia e vola / come la banderuola / che gira qua e là”). We easily see someone like Rolando Villazon bringing the house down singing that aria during a recital. Muti has already found interest for Don Calandrino in Russia and Paris: he really might have found there much more than a curiosity for the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg. It may very well be an opera buffa worth performing again, for wider audiences: it has essentially four leads, one tenor, two dueling (in many ways, literally too) sopranos, and a bass-baritone. At least two arias deserve to become classics of the genre.

More tomorrow, now Opera Chic spake and she is tired.

PS Our favorite post-performance moment: the old dude who approached the gift shop representative asking for a cd of the opera. He had to be told that this was the first performance in more than two centuries. That made Opera Chic lol. (esp because she saw a nice ladey recording the entire performances a few rows back from OC's choice seat).
May ye gawds of Opera Share help us all.

Readers Request: More Muti Hawtness

Due to massive and insistent reader request after Opera Chic's first Muti family-hawtness pawst, here's more images of the Riccardo Muti / Cristina Mazzavillani Muti offspring, daughter Chiara (an actress), and sons Domenico and Francesco.

Here's a magazine photo of Francesco, Chiara and il Maestro @ la Scala:

This is another photo of Francesco:

Here's Chiara, from her website, showing off her impressive cheekbones and the trademark Muti jawline in a Bailey black and white portrait, and a bit of cleavage in a Ferri shot.

Chiara by Bailey:

Chiara by Ferri:

Two Hawt Mutis' in Two Hawt Events

This past weekend OC found a gem in La Stampa that almost made her spit out a fresh, creamy bite of burrata (bella fresca) onto her lap (which would have been tragic...wearing a Nanette Lepore floral sundress). I turned to an article discussing one of Riccardo "how do i make internets?" Muti's very h0tt offspring with wife Cristina Mazzavillani: actress, film star, singer (maybe: read below) and model Chiara "I never gave my dad an iPod for xmas" Muti (in photo above).

The events that spark the article is a coincidental double-date between Italian director Ruggero Cappuccio, who has a current choke-hold on the Muti clan for this Friday, May 25. The stellar date will witness the launch and re-release of two double-coincidental projects for both maestro and daughter that are produced from collaboration with Cappuccio. Another coincidence is that both projects celebrate Naples...but that just gives us yawnz0rz.

The first of Ruggero’s appointments is with Riccardo Muti and the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini at Salzburg’s Haus fur Mozart. Friday marks la prima for a brand new staging of Domenico Cimarosa's Il Ritorno Di Don Calandrino by (obvs) Ruggero Cappuccio with Muti on the podium. The production was commissioned for the 2007 Festival di Pentecoste (and co-produced for the Ravenna Festival) with thankfully no castrati this time.

The other Friday, May 25 appointment for Ruggero (that he already said he would not attend) is with Muti's daughter Chiara, who starred in the director's 2004 movie Il sorriso dell'ultima notte, that will be replaying at Il Politecnico Fandango in Rome until May 31.

I don’t know…if we were in Ruggero’s shoes, how would we have ever decided which event to attend?! On one hand you have the ravishing (albeit a pretty wooden actress, in all her beauty) Chiara...and on the other you have the hotness that is Riccardo. Chiara's cute (and she can make things move without touching them: yes, that was cleverly-crafted joke) but she's not really my type so thanks n e way/ I guess i'd pick Muti, too, but only if he promised to hold me afterwards, but you know he wouldn't...he'd have like some obscure 18th century scores to study.

And what has our lovely Chiara been up to lately? omg u wont believe:: It comes to light in the article that while living in Paris and waiting for a few films to hit the screen this autumn, she is preparing for a recital/play with pianist Paolo Restani about the life of Mozart, which will debut on June 4 at Teatro Municipale Giuseppe Verdi di Salerno. Let's hope she makes her daddy proud.

Speaking of hawtness, this is Muti's son, Domenico, avid soccer player.

This is the Muti family in 2001:

^^^update^^^

Now, to try and recover from all the hawtness, here's a nice piece by the Maestro himself in the online Welt, where he explains his work among the dusty shelves of the Conservatorio San Pietro a Maiella, the archives where he unearthed all those 18th century forgotten gems.