Riccardo Muti Remembers Michael Jackson

Opera Chic does not remember -- due to her birth date -- Michael Jackson the musical child prodigy, nor she remembers Michael Jackson the "Thriller" guy; she therefore has no nostalgia to color her evaluation of the late singer, because essentially she became aware of him when he was already a de facto has-been with legal and financial troubles, more tabloid character than pop artist -- a man whose greatness dated back to the 1970s and 1980s.

Still, Opera Chic was happy to read today, in Milan's Corriere della Sera, that the paper asked Riccardo Muti to talk for a while about the late singer, and the Italian maestro admitted to be a fan of sorts.

Muti, who -- appropriately -- is rehearsing the critical edition, unheard since the composer's time, of the "Missa De­functorum" by Paisiello in Ravenna (he will also take the work to Maggio Musicale Fiorentino),  remembers that he became aware of Jackson's music in the early 1980s, when the Italian maestro was Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra:

"He is without a doubt one of the most legendary, controversial (and beloved) singers of all time... His controversial story, his weaknesses,  the extreme restlessness and his exhausted last days remind me of the lives of the great castrati like Caffarelli or Farinelli, who became objects of adoration and idolatry. And they often became victims of this adoration".

Then the interviewer asked the inevitable question -- did Muti ever dance to a Michael Jackson song? The maestro tersely answers: "No. I can't dance".