Muti's mission: Make each CSO concert a special event
It had all the trappings of a very special occasion and, of course, it was.
In an era of economic uncertainty for performing arts institutions around the world, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra appears to have shown patience is a virtue.
On Jan. 15, Riccardo Muti made his official debut as the CSO's music director designate, conducting Giuseppe Verdi's dramatic Requiem Mass, a work close to his Neapolitan conductor's heart (he studied conducting and composition at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, Italy, and has conducted the Requiem for more than 30 years). Following a professional courtship of more than a year, in May 2008 Muti accepted the invitation to become the CSO's 10th music director, effective September 2010.
Last weekend's three Verdi Requiem performances were Muti's only podium appearances here this season, with additional subscription weeks likely in 2009-10 as he clears his schedule in anticipation of taking over fulltime the following season.
What does Muti's appointment have to do with the uncertain economy? Tickets or subscriptions to symphony concerts or opera performances (like those to sporting events, the theater or other forms of entertainment) are optional in households with lower discretionary income at their disposal. When a cultural icon such as New York's Metropolitan Opera (its budget this season is $291 million) announced huge budget cuts last week, you know this is a serious issue.
The CSO, which has posted modest surpluses the past two seasons, knows all too well how delicate a line arts organizations must follow. Endowment funds are supposedly built for "rainy day" contingencies. But these funds are not composed of hard cash; they are investments in various funds and other financial portfolios influenced by Wall Street. The Met has seen its endowment shrink from $300 million to $200 million, a frightening scenario if you are the company's general manager, Peter Gelb.
"The economic crisis has had an effect on all cultural institutions, and the Met is no exception," Gelb said in a statement. "It's affected our endowment, it's affected our cash flow, it's affected our revenue streams. What we don't want is for it to affect is our artistic productivity."
The Met, which has seen private and corporate gifts shrink by $10 million, has already taken such steps as $7 million in administrative cuts, reducing ticket prices to help "fill the house," plus plans to replace several big-budget new productions with operas costing much less to produce.
For the Chicago Symphony and other major orchestras in the United States, it's not so easy as replacing an expensive opera with a cheaper one. The bulk of a typical orchestral subscription season is built around "core repertoire" pieces such as major works by Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Mahler. Special events such as former music director Daniel Barenboim's semi-staged festival of the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas in the early 1990s, a huge budget-buster, are a rarity in today's economic climate.
So, that leaves it up to the man on the podium to bring the orchestral repertoire to life with interpretations well above the routine. In the CSO's case, Muti, at 67 in the prime of his career, is just the sort of gifted, charismatic leader likely to make each concert a special event.
In the season and a half leading up to September 2010, the orchestra will have the inspired leadership of its principal conductor, Bernard Haitink, and conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez, still going strong in their eighties, with their contributions hopefully continuing well into the Muti era.
Haitink, who conducted the CSO's critically acclaimed tour to Europe last fall, will lead a three-week tour of Asia beginning next weekend in Yokohama, Japan. The tour will include the orchestra's (and Haitink's) first visit to mainland China.
But it all comes back to Muti, whose warm welcome to Orchestra Hall on Jan. 15 recalled the excitement of the early 1970s under Sir Georg Solti. Under Muti's baton, Verdi's magnificent 90-minute Requiem Mass delivered the goods. All sections of the orchestra played like the angels they depict in parts of Verdi's 1874 score. Duain Wolfe's CSO Chorus has never sounded better - not just in the apocalyptic "Dies Irae" but in the more contemplative sections such as the "Agnus Dei." The solo quartet of soprano Barbara Frittoli, mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, tenor Mario Zeffiri and bass Ildar Abdrazakov, carefully selected by Muti, were perfectly matched.
The Thursday night concert was received with rapturous applause (four curtain calls), those attending sold-out Orchestra Hall braving the coldest night of the winter to be there, with very few no-shows.
Muti is guest-conducting the New York Philharmonic this week, an orchestra he passed over in favor of the CSO. Evidenced by last week's concerts, it appears he made a wise choice.