Riccardo Muti has decided to stop conducting opera at the Salzburg Festival, he told an Austrian magazine ahead of his 70th birthday on Thursday.
Muti has regularly appeared at the prestigious festival for four decades. His 1971 Salzburg debut, when he conducted Donizettis Don Pasquale, was the start of a distinguished career.
I will only do concerts here with the Vienna Philharmonic from now on. I will only do operas two times a year, one in Rome and one opera concert with my orchestra in Chicago.
Muti is one of the busiest conductors this Salzburg season, leading a new production of Verdis Macbeth, as well as concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.
