Looking back on his tenure, Muti evokes the example of Toscanini

For Riccardo Muti, serving as the artistic leader of an opera company or symphony orchestra goes well beyond just conducting more performances than the guest conductors. Anything else “is not serious,” he said.

Muti comes from the school of the great Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, whom he paraphrased as saying that a music director should open the theater in the morning with his key and close it at night. While such a sentiment is an obvious exaggeration, it nonetheless conveys his stance on the kind of work that a music director must be willing to put in.

He pointed out that he has held such leadership positions with a few breaks since he was 27, starting with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and continuing with such vaunted orchestras and opera companies as the London Philharmonia, the Philadelphia Orchestra and La Scala, Milan’s celebrated opera house.

Muti, who steps down after this season as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, calls his 13 years here a “musical joy” with none of the conflict that sometimes emerges in professional relationships. “I have worked with these wonderful musicians with honesty,” he said. “I have given everything I could.”

Though he will relinquish that role, he stresses that he is not going away. He will return in September for a three-week CSO residency, followed by two concerts at Carnegie Hall. He also will lead the CSO in a European tour, with stops in 11 cities, including Brussels, Milan, Paris, Rome and Vienna, in January. And he promises to to “continue to conduct the orchestra that I love very much.”