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.