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.