In Wednesday’s (3/30) Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein writes about conductor Riccardo Muti. “The Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director is back in Chicago, back on the podium and back to good health, clearly eager to put recent misfortunes behind him and return to the serious business of making music. … His features bore no trace of scarring following surgery to repair facial fractures suffered when he fell from the podium at a CSO rehearsal in early February, a month that also saw the installation of a pacemaker to improve what was diagnosed as a low heart rate. The 69-year-old Neapolitan maestro arrived in town early Monday afternoon, four days ahead of schedule, to begin rehearsing the signal event of his April residency, a concert version of Verdi’s ‘Otello’ he and the orchestra will take to Carnegie Hall as part of their first New York tour in midmonth. … Contrary to published reports that Muti earlier this month had conducted performances of Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’ at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera in defiance of doctors’ orders, he said he undertook that commitment only after doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital gave him permission to shorten his recovery period and return to Italy to stand at the podium.”
Posted March 31, 2011
