"I feel proud to belong to this country, which betrays us": the seventh edition of Riccardo Muti's Italian opera academy was born from this painful awareness of the lack of attention given to music in his homeland. tonight at the Prada Foundation, with which it was organized for the first time. "We must try to recover the beautiful, the splendid, otherwise - and this is the purpose of the Master - we will fall into routine, into the squalid". A lesson-show focused on Verdi's Nabucco, the opera by Giuseppe Verdi with which Muti made his debut in 1986 as conductor of La Scala and which he has chosen as an object of study for the young conductors and master collaborators at the piano, who will have the privilege of working with him in the next few days.
Ten days of rehearsals and lessons until you get to direct the opera on 15 December in Milan and then in Ravenna and Rimini. The eliminations - explained Muti to the public of the Foundation, including Miuccia Prada, Patrizio Bertelli, the artists Maurizio Cattelan and Francesco Vezzoli - closed only yesterday and, of the 200 candidates from all over the world, 5 young directors were chosen among the 18 and 35 years, including an Italian. To be selected, "they had to go through the caudine forks that I apply" said Muti, explaining that it is essential for him that they have a degree in composition and that they sit at the piano to concert with the singers, as he himself has done in over two hours. presentation of the work, open to the public, as will the rehearsals in the next few days. "Thereit's a kind of decadence or easy way to move the arm, in my madness - he said - in the last years of my life I try to recreate a typically Italian conducting criterion, I'm trying to do the impossible ". To his students , Muti immediately began to give advice: "an orchestra conductor must not accept everything a director says: either he disputes or he goes away." He reminded the collaborators of their role: "which is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play". "Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower" .in my madness - he said - in the last years of my life I try to recreate a typically Italian conducting criterion, I am trying to do the impossible ". To his students, Muti immediately began to give advice:" a conductor of The orchestra must not accept everything a director says: either he disputes or he goes away "." He goes away "he said immediately after, snatching one of the many laughs of the evening. He reminded the master collaborators of their role:" that it is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play "." Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower ".in my madness - he said - in the last years of my life I try to recreate a typically Italian conducting criterion, I am trying to do the impossible ". To his students, Muti immediately began to give advice:" a conductor of The orchestra must not accept everything a director says: either he disputes or he goes away "." He goes away "he said immediately after, snatching one of the many laughs of the evening. He reminded the master collaborators of their role:" that it is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play "." Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower ".Muti immediately began to give advice: "an orchestra conductor must not accept everything a director says: either he disputes or he goes away". "He goes away" he said immediately after, snatching one of the many laughs of the evening. He reminded the collaborating teachers of their role: "which is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play". "Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower".Muti immediately began to give advice: "an orchestra conductor must not accept everything a director says: either he disputes or he goes away". "He goes away" he said immediately after, snatching one of the many laughs of the evening. He reminded the collaborating teachers of their role: "which is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play". "Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower".which is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play "." Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower ".which is not that of the pianist who sits at the piano because the conductor does not know how to play "." Here a world has changed and we must recover it - he reiterated - because we were a luminous tower ".
And then Nabucco: "by dint of studying strange things come out, one realizes that one life is not enough, looking and looking again I understood at a late age that in this work - explained the Master - there is a criterion constructive as an architect of music ".
Nabucco, for him, has another particular meaning, because "it is the work of my debut as musical director at La Scala in 1986: an ideal bridge - he concluded - to return to work in the city that was formative and very important for my life as a musician ".