Riccardo Muti makes a historic return to Torino for two streaming programs

The northern Italian city of Torino, site of the 2006 Winter Olympics, welcomed Riccardo Muti for a historic return last month to the city. Having led Torino’s Teatro Regio Orchestra for the first time in 1968, Muti was recently reunited with the orchestra to record two programs that will become available for on-demand streaming in March. 



This first program marks Muti’s opera debut in the historic Teatro Regio as he leads a production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, directed by his daughter and acclaimed stage director, Chiara Muti. Così fan tutte is an opera that Muti, the Zell Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has returned to many times in his career since first conducting it in 1982 at the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of distinguished conductor Herbert von Karajan.

The opera will be available for free, on-demand streaming, but only in Italy, beginning March 11 at 8 p.m. through Sept. 30. Presentation of the concert is available through a partnership with Riccardo Muti Music with more information available at Teatro Regio Torino.





As rehearsals for the opera began, Muti spoke with the newspaper Corriere della Sera, noting, 
“I had conducted the Regio Orchestra only once, in 1968, at the beginning of my career. [Now] I find it not only full of will, but of worth, with the musicians expressing their best in very difficult moral and economic conditions.”

"I am sincerely moved that Maestro Muti has enthusiastically accepted my invitation to come and conduct our wonderful orchestra and our very refined chorus,” said Rosanna Purchia, general manager of the Teatro Regio. “My long relationship of esteem and friendship with the Maestro, strengthened by our common Neapolitan origins, allowed for this extraordinary result. The presence of the Maestro, in a moment of such difficulty for the theater, is an important sign, which gives me and all of us an extraordinary strength.”

Italy’s La Stampa also spoke to Muti during the rehearsal period in February, when he remarked, “I found an orchestra and a chorus in excellent shape. All the staff are very kind and [are] extraordinary collaborators. It was a wonderful experience, I congratulate Turin [Torino].”

When asked about a possible return, he said, “I’d like to. ... I found a wonderful environment. The mayor, Chiara Appendino, also came to visit me, and I was very pleased because it is important that artists feel the presence of a city authority who cares about culture.”



Ugo Favaro, the orchestra’s first horn, also spoke to La Stampa, adding, “The whole theater has been very collaborative with him, much more than usual.”


A 2018 co-production of the Teatro di San Carlo in Muti’s native Naples and the Vienna State Opera, this production of Così fan tutte will feature the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Regio Torino and an all-Italian cast of singers, including soprano Eleonora Buratto (Fiordiligi), known to CSO audiences for her 2016 appearances as Alice Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff with Riccardo Muti. Joining her are mezzo-soprano Paola Gardina (Dorabella), baritone Alessandro Luongo (Guglielmo), tenor Giovanni Sala (Ferrando), mezzo-soprano Francesca Di Sauro (Despina) and bass Marco Filippo Romano (Don Alfonso).

As part of the Teatro Regio’s larger series of digital releases in 2021, Muti will lead the Teatro Regio Orchestra in an all-Verdi concert program, which premieres March 18 and includes music from the composer’s early opera Joan of Arc, as well as from Verdi’s Stabat mater and the Te Deum from the Four Sacred Pieces, performed by the orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Regio Torino, with soprano Eleonora Buratto as soloist in the Te Deum.

The all-Verdi program is available for on-demand streaming worldwide from March 18 through Sept. 30 for a fee of three euros (approximately $3.63 U.S.). More information and reservations available at Teatro Regio Torino.

After the recording sessions for both programs, Professor Stefano Vagnarelli, concertmaster of the orchestra, and Professor Pierluigi Filagna, horn player of the orchestra, read a message on behalf of the orchestra, chorus and of all the theater’s workers and presented Muti with a copy of a historic letter from 1771 addressed to Count Lascaris when Leopold Mozart and his son Wolfgang Amadeus visited Torino.



Muti, who was genuinely moved by this personal gesture, remarked that “I was invited to conduct Mozart and Verdi, and I was very intrigued to find the orchestra after many years and was hoping to find an excellent situation from the artistic point of view, but you have shown that you are far above excellent, to be of an important excellence, not only for Turin [Torino], but also for Italy.

"I’m leaving today ... with the promise of returning to work together with the orchestra, the choir and the Teatro Regio. This is a promise that I make to all of you.”



As the two Torino programs debut online in March, Muti resumes his activities with his Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra, which will travel to the Italian cities of Bergamo, Naples and Palermo to record concerts to be released for free, on-demand streaming throughout the month at Ravenna Festival Live. During the final tour stop in Palermo, Muti will be officially recognized as an honorary citizen of Palermo for his commitment to spreading the values of peace and brotherhood through the universal language of music.