Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica
Titolo: Maestro Muti defends Art and thus La Scala [let 'em eat cake]

http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2005/03_Marzo/08/Muti.shtml
In a letter to the Corriere della Sera, Riccardo Muti comments publicly
on the trouble-racked opera house after the controversial replacement
of the superintendent, which provoked a strike and the cancellation of
the current season's premieres. The conductor explains that for 20
years, he has been committed to promoting La Scala's artistic growth
and defending its music.
Sir, I thank you for your newspaper's hospitality in allowing me to
make a few reflections from my "silence", which has been
interpreted in the last few days in many ways, according to the various
perspectives, sensitivities and expediencies of many observers. I wish
to address not only the workers at the Teatro alla Scala, but also all
those who consider the institution to be a shared and irreplaceable
asset. I am interrupting a "silence" dictated hitherto only by
having to hold my peace in the bedlam of actions, reactions,
declarations and interventions by individuals who are using La Scala in
this difficult, confused moment. During these days of "silence", I
have reflected on my activities in almost 20 years as musical director
at La Scala. I have re-examined my path since the time when a number of
La Scala musicians asked me several times, speaking on behalf of their
colleagues, to agree to guide the Orchestra and help it to grow
artistically. After much hesitation, because at the time I was musical
director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, I consented, but only because
the invitation was made by the musicians themselves.
Thus began my path from 1986 to the present day. My work with the
orchestra and chorus was intense, unremitting and exhausting, but
always constructive and filled with joy, because the musicians were
driven by an immense desire to improve, collaborate and advance along a
shared path. Over the years, many excellent new musicians joined the
orchestra, selected by committees that I always chaired personally (a
serious musical director cannot fail to be present at the selection of
musicians). Gradually, the orchestra reached the level that today is
universally acknowledged and admired. This new quality has made
possible successful symphonic performances around the world, as well as
at La Scala. Significant triumphs have been achieved in challenging,
competitive environments such as the festivals of Vienna, Lucerne and
Salzburg.
The positive results from all this work of course had repercussions
above all at La Scala itself. Performances of works from different
periods and styles were praised by all the conductors who in these
years have succeeded each other on the podium. Now, the workers ask me
publicly, in the maelstrom of an intricate affair that is proliferating
to the certain detriment of La Scala's image, both for its tone and
for its manner: 1) "Where does the Maestro stand?" 2) "Why does
he not come into the open?" I will answer the second question by
saying that I have no need to "come into the open" because I have
never been hiding. I was not hiding when I played La Traviata on the
piano in front of an angrily shouting audience, to safeguard La
Scala's good name and because I wanted music to be the final winner.
"Where does the Maestro stand?"
I thought it was obvious that after 20 years together, I have always
been on the side of La Scala, which means the side of the workers who
bring La Scala to life with their labours and their passion. How can La
Scala workers have forgotten my struggles with them against the threats
from our rulers to cut arts funding, to suppress music teaching in
schools, to bring cultural institutions to their knees and to render
their very existence precarious? In all these years, I have always been
at their side, supporting the orchestra's soloists, commissioning
many new works from young or already successful composers, and proud of
the excellent standards achieved by the rank and file artistic and
production staff. All this went on while in Milan and at La Scala,
mayors, superintendents (Badini, then Fontana), artistic directors,
heads of personnel, stage directors, press officers and managers of all
kinds came and went, sometimes with alarming frequency.
I have stayed in the same boat as all of the La Scala workers. Today, I
am accused of not wishing to be just musical director, but artistic
director as well, and perhaps also superintendent, or even of
influencing the candidature for the next mayor. I would have to smile,
if the spectacle were not so depressing. However, I was prompted by the
serious concern of many people who with me perceived the slow but
inexorable decline of La Scala's artistic programme, in stark
contrast to the improvement in the quality of artistic production. At a
certain point, I decided to protest to the board, and to the mayor,
about a situation that was threatening La Scala's image, and before
which I felt impotent. It was then that my thoughts went to a person
who in recent years has earned the attention and praise of public and
critics for the intelligence he has demonstrated at a theatre that is
often indicated as a model for its abundance of new ideas: Mauro Meli.
He is not, and has never been, my personal friend, as some have
claimed. For many years, he collaborated with Maestro Claudio Abbado at
Ferrara, then he was superintendent at Cagliari, where he managed to
attract artists of the first order, starting with Carlos Kleiber.
On this subject, certain people have been for years fomenting - with
surprising tenacity and the crescendo technique of Rossini's
celebrated slander aria - the story that I was vetoing the appearance
of great conductors at La Scala. The accusation is so insulting that it
deserves no response. However, I do want to mention my many appeals,
some on the pages of this very newspaper, to Claudio Abbado to return
to La Scala. I made a special plea to Abbado in the Verdi year of 2001,
inviting him to conduct in "his" theatre an opera of his own
choice. The Maestro's courteous replies were consistently negative,
for a variety of reasons. Barenboim, Maazel, Rattle, Mehta, Ozawa,
Boulez and other conductors from the very front rank can testify to the
invitations I have made to them to come and conduct at La Scala. Many
of these conductors appear at the festival in Ravenna, the town where I
live. But it is not my task to invite conductors personally. As
everyone knows, this is not the responsibility of a musical director.
According to the statute of theatre foundations, whose value I have
always doubted (see my statements of concern when the foundations were
created), only the superintendent has power to negotiate. In fact, the
superintendent can even appoint and dismiss the artistic director and
musical director.
I may have been wrong not to worry about the less than extraordinary
quality of the La Scala seasons, and the decline of the theatre's
prestige. Often, I was wounded when abroad by not always flattering
comments about La Scala, a significant portion of whose artistic
responsibility I as musical director inevitably bear in the eyes of the
international scene. I may have been wrong in trying to help soothe the
worries of the workers, many of whom asked me to intervene to turn La
Scala round, recover its lost harmony and disperse the widespread
unease within the theatre. But I have imposed nothing. Above all, even
had I wanted to, the law does not give me that power. After 20 years, I
have no desire to expand my personal influence inside La Scala. For one
who has turned down invitations to conduct the New York Philharmonic
and the Bayerisches Rundfunk, two of the world's greatest orchestras,
in order to devote himself to the orchestra of La Scala, there can be
no place for intrigue or clandestine manoeuvring.
I will make no comment on the many other untruths that certain
newspapers have reported, for they do nothing to clear the air or
create an atmosphere of harmonious dialogue. I trust that a
constructive way forward will be sought for the good of La Scala, of
those who truly bring the theatre to life with their work, and of the
people of Milan, who are alarmed and bewildered. In the absolute
certainty that La Scala will endure for as long as our society needs
the arts and music, and that artists, who are not irreplaceable, at a
certain point have to bow out, I thank and salute you all.
Riccardo Muti 
English translation by Giles Watson 
www.watson.it


that's a very longwinded apologia for being a horseshit conductor.

 wrote in message 
news:uPmdne0cTut...@speakeasy.net...


Sorry about the sloppy writing...the Xanax is kicking in with my other 
medication--- corrected copy should read-
----
It sounds as if he's appealing to the Pope to be canonized.  I really 
distrust a diatribe which claims nothing but innocence for the writer and, 
in return,
only animosity from those in opposition.
Why is this reminding me of the mentality and rationale of the German 
leadership in the late 1930s?  All for the people and the
workers while seeking nothing but service and innocence from the writer.
They don't understand me!  Yeah...uh-huh!
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.

A bit lengthy, but a reasoned response from one who wishes not to be
drawn into a labor dispute.
I have enjoyed a number of Muti's recordings, especially those of
MACBETH, BALLO,  and AIDA.
The MACBETH is the only one I favor above the competition and that is
primarily for the ecellence of Cossotto and Milnes.
The state of opera today is precarious because of:
(1) the paucity of outstanding singers;
(2) the silliness of stage designers and directors trying to "improve"
on the traditional presentations;
(3) the dwindling number of conductors operating at Muti's level of
professionalism and skill.
==G/P Dave


dave, as to number 3 in your catalogue:
i am grateful to providence for that paucity of those on muti's level. 
there may yet be salvation for the art form. if their numbers shrink 
rapidly, survival is a certainty.
had muti a bit more baton skill and the periodic inclination to glance 
at his vocal forces, he might rise to the level of the late immortal 
spike jones.
had he better vocal taste, he might have had the prescience to engage a 
splendid baritone like doodles weaver ... of coure, let us not forget 
that mr. jones also had the services of ina souez, who had sung under 
the baton of fritz busch at glyndebourne in its founding seasons.
could it be that some poison-pen scrivener at corriere della sera or a 
comparable critic with taste might finally succeed in encouraging  muti 
to exile himself from la scala [providing that he is not encouraged to 
take up residence at any venue in the united states].
if we were to swallow the treacle that muti published, any dedicated 
reader might have thought it an excerpt from "rebecca of sunnybrook farm."
dft