Riccardo Muti

Conductor Riccardo Muti, often hailed as the modern embodiment of Toscanini, approaches his work with a distinctive blend of rigorous score fidelity and an emphasis on luminous sound. Beyond demanding precise ensemble in performances that move with urgency, he draws on an enduring Italian elegance that has remained vibrant even in later decades. In 2025 he directed the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert for the seventh occasion, and the resulting recording extended a discography whose beginnings reach deep into the LP period.

Born in Naples on July 28, 1941, Muti first studied piano and violin with his father, a physician. He continued at Milan’s Verdi Conservatory, where Bruno Bettinelli guided his composition and Antonino Votto oversaw his conducting studies. After claiming first prize in the 1967 Guido Cantelli Conducting Competition, he made his professional debut the following year with the RAI Orchestra. That same year he assumed leadership of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a position he held until 1980. In 1973 he also became principal conductor of London’s New Philharmonia, remaining until 1982. Philadelphia’s longtime music director Eugene Ormandy effectively designated him successor in 1980. During his Philadelphia years Muti cultivated a cooler relationship with both players and critics while sharpening the ensemble’s precision without sacrificing its inherent warmth. He broadened programming by introducing concert operas and commissioning scores from demanding modernists such as Berio, Davidovsky, and Kirchner, alongside more iconoclastic American voices including Bolcom and Rouse. One of his earliest recordings, issued in 1980, presented short operas by Mascagni and Leoncavallo with tenor José Carreras.

Opera continued to claim his primary allegiance, and in 1986 he accepted the music directorship of Teatro alla Scala, adding the principal conductorship of the La Scala Philharmonic the next year. He departed Philadelphia in 1992 and seldom returned. Within the operatic sphere he concentrated on Italian repertory, favoring critical editions and urging singers to forgo conventional interpolations. At La Scala, however, larger conflicts arose when he clashed with general manager Carlo Fontana, secured Fontana’s removal in favor of his preferred candidate, and subsequently confronted resistance from the orchestra. In 2004 he established the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini and has continued as its music director. He stepped down from La Scala in April 2005 yet retained strong influence through an ongoing partnership with the Salzburg Festival, where he has led numerous operatic productions. From 2007 until 2012 he served as artistic director of Salzburg’s Whitsun Festival, presenting both concerts with the Cherubini orchestra and revivals of rarely heard eighteenth-century Italian operas.

Muti assumed the music directorship of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2010. An earlier announcement naming him music director of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma beginning that year proved irregular, so he never held the formal title yet performed a comparable function. During a 2011 performance of Verdi’s Nabucco he invited both chorus and audience to join in “Va pensiero,” treating the chorus as an unofficial Italian anthem to protest arts-funding reductions under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In Chicago he endeared himself to local sports enthusiasts by wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey amid the team’s 2013 championship celebrations. He has remained a frequent guest conductor worldwide and returned in 2025 for his seventh appearance leading the Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Concert. In 2021 he directed the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Verdi’s Requiem, and the Chicago Symphony announced the conclusion of his tenure in 2023. Married to festival director Maria Cristina Mazzavillani, he and his wife have three children. By the mid-2020s his catalog exceeded three hundred releases, with fourteen appearing in 2001 alone. His repertory encompasses nearly every standard work in opera and symphonic literature; although he programs contemporary music less often than some colleagues, he has conducted and recorded pieces by composers such as Philip Glass.