Now that Riccardo Muti is returning to the life of an active orchestral music director -- he takes up the baton of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in fall 2010 -- can a reprise directing an opera house be far behind?
The invaluable Opera Chic tipped us off yesterday that the website of Rome's main local newspaper, Il Messaggero, was reporting that the city's controversial conservative mayor Gianni Alemanno has asked Muti, 67, to handle the musical reins at the Rome Opera. The website reported that Muti had asked to think the proposition over.
As is par for the course in Italy, the Rome theatre is in the midst of government funding and labor union clashes, with strikes threatened almost daily -- even while Muti is there conducting a new production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide this week.
Muti left Italy's top opera house, Milan's La Scala, after 18 years in 2005 amidst political and union intrigues. But what better way to stick it to his Northern Italian tormentors than to build up the Rome company and reputation? Mayor Alemanno, 51, who has flirted with neo-fascism over the years, hails from Bari in the south and knows the ways of the class and regional conflicts that have haunted Italy throughout its history. Muti's home town of Molfetta is just 15 miles up the Adriatic coast from Bari in Puglia.
As I report today in the Chicago Sun-Times, it is not uncommon for music directors to head two complementary organizations. Muti could not be reached for comment yesterday, nor could CSO President Deborah Rutter.
Stay tuned!
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