(Above: Muti by Jim Newberry)
Maestro Muti on the events of the past couple months and the aftermath of rebuilding his shattered jaw:
“Not only the discomfort, but because you feel very humiliated as a human being. I couldn’t eat, of course. I had a tube attached here [pointing to where an IV would go on his arm]. In fact, when I go to a restaurant, still now, I have to eat very soft things because the muscles don’t allow me to chew,” he says, demonstrating his limited range of mouth motion. “Always when I go into a restaurant, I say to the waiter, ‘Look, I had an accident and cannot chew well, so I need to eat as either, you decide: either like an old man, or a baby, as you please,’ because it is the same thing.”