In his long career, Riccardo Muti, 81, has led top orchestras and run major opera houses; for a brief moment about a decade ago, there were rumors he would become Italy’s ceremonial head of state. Muti’s fierce stare is imposing and inspirational—he’s an Italian conductor out of central casting, but with better hair than Arturo Toscanini or Victor de Sabata. The Lisztian black mane now has a little gray in it after 55 years of conducting (he first became a music director in Florence at the age of 26), but Muti remains a dramatic presence both at the podium and in person, though he leavens his gravitas with humor. Muti relishes telling jokes, employing expert timing and punctuating them with huge smiles and laughter. In English, he also employs a Seinfeldian use of ellipsis—instead of “yadda yadda yadda,” Muti uses a shorthand for “etcetera, etcetera, etcetera” that sounds like “chettera, chettera.”
For an artist so associated with Italy, Muti has spent a great deal of time in the United States—he’s one of only a handful of conductors to lead two of America’s “Big Five” orchestras—yet for all his symphonic appearances, his operatic output in the U.S. is limited to a mere seven performances of “Attila” at the Metropolitan Opera. But opera remains a key component of Muti’s musical mastery, which he gave audiences a taste of during his “farewell tour” of the U.S. this spring with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble he’s led since 2010.
Muti spoke with me about his tenure in Chicago and his long career on both sides of the Atlantic backstage at a new concert hall in Orlando, Florida during a day of rehearsals. That evening, he lead a performance of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” which he will also play with the CSO at Carnegie Hall’s Opening Night Gala this October.
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