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Last dramatic act at La Scala for maestro Muti
RICHARD BROOKS, ARTS EDITOR
RICCARDO MUTI, the musical director of La Scala, one of the world’s top opera houses, dramatically resigned yesterday.
The embattled conductor, who has been at the Milan opera house since 1986, cited “the vulgar hostility of colleagues” for his decision to resign.
Muti, 64, had been conducting his own two-year battle with the board of La Scala. Only last month he successfully managed to oust an old enemy, Carlo Fontana, as general manager but in doing so he lost the support of many members of the orchestra as well as stagehands.
The fiery temper of the Naples-born conductor has long been the stuff of musical legend. Last autumn British opera-goers experienced a Muti tantrum when at the last minute he pulled out of conducting La Forza Del Destino at the Royal Opera House in London in a row over sets.
La Scala itself, which was first opened in 1778, reopened only last December after a £43m refit. Resentment had been building, however, over what many musicians saw as Muti’s high-handed attitude and disdain of the powerful Italian trade unions. Labour unrest meant the cancellation of some performances with employees at La Scala threatening to strike for each scheduled premiere.
Two weeks ago Muti told his rebellious musicians: “The conditions no longer exist for us to make music together.”
The crisis came to a head yesterday with Muti, who is regarded as one of the world’s top opera conductors, saying that he had no alternative but to step down.
“Despite the signs of esteem expressed to me by the board, the hostility manifested in such a coarse way by persons with whom I have worked for nearly 20 years makes it really impossible to carry on with a relationship of collaboration, which should be based on harmony and trust,” he said..
“To make music together isn’t only a group labour. It requires sharing, esteem, passion, interest and understanding. These are the sentiments which I believed to have been the constant of these 20 years at La Scala.”
The clash between Muti and the unions might seem to be one between high art and philistinism: a maestro used to getting his own way while performing at a usually very high level, and the old-fashioned workforces of Italy, who at times seem to operate as if this were still the heady 1960s when overmanning was the norm.
La Scala has a behind-the-scenes staff alone of more than 1,000, at least twice as many as the Royal Opera House. La Scala is also hugely subsidised.
Muti, who was still in his twenties when he was appointed music director of the prestigious Maggio Musicale in Florence in 1968, moved four years later to the Philharmonia in London, taking over as principal director from Otto Klemperer. He has also conducted operatic productions in Philadelphia, Munich and Vienna.
Muti’s successor will almost certainly have to be Italian and will be hard to find. The front-runners are probably Daniele Gatti, who is both music director of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and of Bologna’s Teatro Comunale, and Riccardo Chailly, who has recently left his post in Amsterdam to become music director in Leipzig. He has not yet arrived in Germany, however, which might make him more easily available.
Gatti is highly regarded, but is considered to be a little young and inexperienced for what is not just a musical post but also a political one.
Muti’s predecessor was Claudio Abbado, who made no secret of his close ties to Italy’s socialist government of the time. Some even wonder if Abbado might be tempted back, although there could be concerns about his health.
Another name being mentioned as a successor is Antonio Pappano, music director of Covent Garden. Pappano, who has American parents, took over at very short notice the conducting La Forza Del Destino last October after Muti’s withdrawal.
Some were even wondering this weekend if Muti’s resignation was tactical. “He might have done it more in the hope that the powers-that-be beg him to stay and win his battles with the unions,” said one opera insider.
Link to Musicweb.uk.net
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