CRISIS AT LA SCALA
THE AUSTRALIAN
22 March 2005
|
|
More dramas at La Scala as Muti cancels program
Richard Owen
22 March 2005
THE opera world is eyeing two British-based conductors as potential saviours of Milan's famous La Scala opera house, which has cancelled this month's program amid a bitter power struggle and staff revolt.
Staff voted overwhelmingly at an emergency meeting last week for the removal of La Scala's charismatic but allegedly dictatorial director of music.
Barely three months after renovations costing E60 million ($100.5 million) were completed, the conductor, Riccardo Muti, has cancelled performances and told his rebellious musicians: "The conditions no longer exist for us to make music together."
As La Scala moves closer to collapse, with strikes, protests, legal writs and behind-the-scenes plotting worthy of a Verdi libretto, eyes are turning to Antonio Pappano, music director at Covent Garden, and Daniele Gatti, music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Bologna's Teatro Comunale.
They top a list of potential successors to Muti, 64, which includes Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly and Claudio Abbado, who was Muti's predecessor at La Scala.
Italian opera circles are particularly keen to see the appointment of Pappano, who was born in London to Italian parents. Colleagues at the Royal Opera House, where Pappano has earned the sobriquet of Mr Motivator for his dynamism during the past three years, are convinced that he will stay in London.
Pappano, 45, has had a meteoric rise, becoming music director of the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels at 32 and making acclaimed appearances at the Vienna Staatsoper and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Last year he cancelled guest performances in Chicago and flew to London to take over a production of Verdi's La Forza del Destino from Muti after the latter left in a row over scenery.
Gatti, a former guest conductor at Covent Garden, is similarly admired by critics for his fire and flair and heart-on-sleeve lyricism.
The Indian-born Mehta is considered fully stretched as chief conductor of the Maggio Musicale opera house in Florence and music director for life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Abbado, music director of La Scala from 1968 until 1986, fell ill with stomach cancer five years ago, although he has recovered. Chailly appears a likelier candidate: born in Milan, he became chief conductor of the Giuseppe Verdi Symphony Orchestra in that city six years ago.
The British contenders are relatively young and seen as innovators. By contrast, Muti, who has been music director of La Scala for 19 years, is accused having a conservative approach to repertoire. His resignation was demanded by 700 out of 800 staff this week.
"Nobody doubts Muti's musical ability but he has to go," says one senior La Scala official. "He wants to control everything."
The Times
Link to Musicweb.uk.net
|
The Wanderer |
|
Souvenir |
|
Please write us |