Riccardo Muti |
Riccardo Muti
He is currently Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. For 45 years he has been collaborating with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Born in 1941 in Naples. He graduated with honors from the piano department of the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella (class of Vincenzo Vitale). As a composer and conductor, he studied at the Milan Conservatory. G. Verdi (class of Bruno Bettinelli and Antonio Votto).
Laureate of the 1967st Prize at the Competition for Conductors named after G. Cantelli (Milan, 1968). From 1980 to 1971 he was the chief conductor of the Florentine Musical May festival. In XNUMX, at the invitation of Herbert von Karajan, he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival and has been a regular participant ever since.
From 1973 to 1982 he led the London Philharmonic Orchestra, succeeding Otto Klemperer. From 1980 to 1992 – Philadelphia Symphony (Muti’s predecessor was Eugene Ormandy).
From 1986 to 2005 he was musical director of La Scala Theatre. Among the highest achievements are Mozart’s trilogy on the libretto by da Ponte (The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, That’s what everyone does), Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, rarely performed works by composers of the 7th century Neapolitan school, operas by Gluck, Cherubini and Spontini . The production of “Dialogues of the Carmelites” by Poulenc was awarded the Prize. F. Abbiati. The culmination of Riccardo Muti’s activities at La Scala was the premiere on the stage of Salieri’s opera Recognized Europe (December 2004, XNUMX), which was reopened after restoration.
Conducted many operas by Verdi. Has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the National Orchestra of France. In 2004, he founded the L. Cherubini Youth Orchestra, together with which, in 2007-2012, as part of the Trinity Festival in Salzburg, he returned forgotten works by composers of the Neapolitan school of the 45th century to the stage. For XNUMX years he has been collaborating with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Four times – in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004 – Muti conducted the famous New Year’s concerts of the orchestra in the Vienna Musikverein.
Since 2010, he has been music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A live recording of Verdi’s Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Riccardo Muti was awarded the Grammy Award in two categories: “Best Classical Album” (among soloists – Olga Borodina and Ildar Abdrazakov) and “Best Choir Work” (2011).
Muti gave concerts in Sarajevo (1997), Beirut (1998), Jerusalem (1999), Moscow (2000), Yerevan and Istanbul (2001), as part of the project “Roads of Friendship” (Le vie dell’Amicizia) under the auspices of the Festival in Ravenna, New York (2002), Cairo (2003), Damascus (2004), El Jeme (Tunisia, 2005), Meknes (2006), Lebanon (2007), Mazara del Vallo (2008), Sarajevo (2009), Trieste (2010) and Nairobi (2011).
Among the numerous awards and titles of a conductor are the holder of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the holder of the Officer’s Cross of Merit for the Federal Republic of Germany, an officer of the Order of the Legion of Honor, an honorary knight-commander of the Order of the British Empire, a holder of the highest award of the Vatican – the Great Cross I class of the Order of St. Gregory the Great.
Honorary member of the Vienna Society of Friends of Music, the Vienna Court Chapel, the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Honorary life director of the Rome Opera.
He was awarded the Silver Medal of the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Order of Friendship (Russia), the Wolf Prize (Israel), the Prize. Birgit Nilsson (Sweden), Opera News Awards (USA), Prince of Asturias Prize (Spain), Vittorio de Sica Prize and Honorary Diploma from IULM University of Milan, Honorary Diploma from L’Orientale University of Neapolitan. Doctor of Humane Letters from the School of Music and Theater at DePaul University in Chicago.
