Muti against the backdrop of Putin

(Photo: Natalya Loginova )

Riccardo Muti and the orchestra of Milan's La Scala theater came to Moscow for just one evening thanks to the efforts of the artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater Valery Gergiev. It was he who agreed with Muti that on the way to St. Petersburg for the Stars of the White Nights 2000 festival, the La Scala orchestra would stop by the capital. Thus, the Milanese musicians formed a tour: Wroclaw - Moscow - St. Petersburg - Vilnius.

Riccardo Muti took over La Scala in 1986 after the departure of the famous Claudio Abbado. Since then, Muti has had no rivals in Italy, despite the fact that the theater, which remains a symbol of operatic art for music lovers, is experiencing serious financial difficulties and therefore not only no longer determines operatic fashion, but also does not always maintain its former impeccable level.

Muti is not limited to working at La Scala. He performs with all the major symphony orchestras in the world and is now thinking about leading the New York Philharmonic in two years (without leaving his theater). And the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, which traditionally does not have an official chief conductor, has long considered Riccardo Muti as such.

The Moscow public also loves the conductor. But unlike his first visit in 1989, when it seemed that the Great Hall of the Conservatory would collapse under the pressure of Muti's fans, there were empty seats at this concert. Most of the tickets costing from four to five thousand rubles remained unsold. In the hall there were mostly happy owners of free invitations. But first they had to suffer a lot. At first, the audience stood in the street for more than an hour, because the plane with the instruments was very delayed and the start of the concert had to be postponed. Then the listeners, in an incredible crush, underwent a harsh personal search procedure - Vladimir Putin came to the concert with his wife and a large retinue.

The President endured half of the program - the overture to Verdi's opera "Force of Destiny" and Elgar's overture "In the South", which were only a prologue to the magnificent interpretation of Schubert's Ninth ("Great") Symphony. Conducting artistically, temperamentally and at the same time strictly, Muti sometimes slowed down the tempo of this already long work in order to demonstrate the beautiful sound of his “typically Italian” orchestra. However, Putin inherited Elgar’s vaguely romantic overture and Verdi’s hit overture, in which Muti emphasized not melodic beauty, as usual, but dramatic pathos and expressive texture, also sounded interesting.

If Vladimir Vladimirovich nevertheless becomes interested in the ninth symphonies, he may soon hear an equally famous opus performed by Riccardo Muti. At the end of July, the conductor and his Milan orchestra will return to Moscow to play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony together with the Bolshoi Theater choir.

With the participation of Yaroslav Sedov