Muti to open CSO season, lead tour in his 'audition'
Will Muti be the man?
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will open its 2007-08 subscription season at 8 p.m. Sept. 14 and 3 p.m. Sept. 16 with the renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti leading a program of music by Serge Prokofiev, Manuel da Falla and Maurice Ravel.
Muti will conduct essentially the same music Sept. 15 for the CSO's annual gala concert, with the addition of soprano Barbara Frittoli making her CSO debut, performing several Verdi and Puccini operatic arias.
Muti then will conduct a second subscription program Sept. 20-21, including Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony and Aleksander Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstasy," before the orchestra packs its instruments and heads to Europe for a two-week tour under Muti's baton, through Oct. 6.
Muti is one of one of several high-profile candidates to become Daniel Barenboim's successor as music director, so these opening concerts (as well as the European tour) will be of special interest.
Muti has not conducted the orchestra since the mid-1970s, so the big question is how well he works with the musicians, and how the audience reacts to his performances? In a way, the next three weeks constitute an audition for the Italian maestro, whose resume includes artistic leadership of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the legendary opera house, Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, Italy.
The CSO search committee includes several members of the orchestra, and they are certain to have a major say on the next music director. Other orchestras have hired a music director not fully backed by the musicians, resulting in less-than-successful long-term results.
Meanwhile, the CSO's downtown season will resume Oct. 12-16, when St. Louis Symphony music director David Robertson conducts three subscription concerts sandwiched around the annual "Macy's Day of Music," an all-day, multi-event extravaganza on Saturday, Oct. 15, which will include a free CSO concert under Robertson's baton. The guest artist for all four concerts will be saxophonist Branford Marsalis, who will play Claude Debussy's Rhapsody for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra, as well as Aaron Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with Marsalis adapting Copland's score for soprano saxophone.
The concerts of Oct. 18-23 will herald the season debut of principal conductor Bernard Haitink, whose fall residency will conclude Nov. 10. Haitink's opening program will include Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6 ("Tragic"), along with Richard Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll," a chamber-orchestra work written as a love letter to his wife, Cosima.
Haitink's second week will feature the world premiere of a work by composer-in-residence Mark-Anthony Turnage: "Chicago Remains." Also on that program, pianist Emanuel Ax will play one of his signature pieces, Brahms' Second Concerto.
On Nov. 8-10, Haitink will conduct Francis Poulenc's "Gloria," one of the most important choral works of the mid-20th century, which will feature the CSO Chorus and soprano Jessica Rivera in her CSO debut. Haitink will return for three more weeks of concerts in May.
Also arriving for one program in November is former Cleveland Orchestra music director Christoph Von Dohnanyi, who will conduct Anton Bruckner's Fourth ("Romantic") Symphony and Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto with soloist Arabella Steinbacher making her debut with the orchestra.
November's concerts will close with the first visit here in two years by legendary film composer John Williams for concerts Nov. 24, 25 and 27.
The 2007-08 season will welcome such additional guest conductors as Nicholas Kraemer, making his CSO debut in the concerts of Nov. 15-10; Semyon Bychkov, Mark Elder, Myung-Whun Chung, Antonio Pappano, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Mitsuko Uchida, John Eliot Gardiner, Manfred Honek, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Kent Nagano, Harry Bicket, Michael Tilson Thomas and Leonard Slatkin. Several of these may be on the CSO's "short list," although Tilson Thomas is a fixture in San Francisco and Slatkin is about to take over the Detroit Symphony.
Tickets are available by phone at (312) 294-3000 or in person at the Symphony Center box office, 220 S. Michigan Ave. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Online buyers can buy tickets at www.cso.org using major credit cards.