The CSO and Riccardo Muti open the Carnegie Hall season in gala style

This fall, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti have served as the main attractions at not just one but two opening nights. First, back home at Symphony Center and then in New York City, where Muti and the CSO launched the 23-24 season at Carnegie Hall with a gala concert. 

Arts journalists from across the United States and Europe turned out for the event Oct. 4, the first of two sold-out programs featuring the CSO and Music Director Emeritus for Life Riccardo Muti. Joining them was star virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (in a reprise of his Symphony Ball performance Sept. 23). The Tchaikovsky favorite led off the concert, which was live-streamed by New York classical-music station WQXR, and was followed by Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition. Spotted in the opening-night crowd were arts luminaries such as mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, actor-director Liev Schreiber and actress Patricia Clarkson. 

After the Mussorgsky, Muti addressed the audience and mentioned that the movement The Great Gates of Kiev has taken on added meaning, given the war in Ukraine. He added that he did not intend to be political and wanted to send concertgoers on their way with an encore from Giordani’s Fedora, an intermezzo based on the aria “Amor ti vieta” (the aria itself begins with the words “Love forbids you not to love”).

Muti and the CSO return for a second program Oct. 5 featuring Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, Strauss’ Aus Italien and the New York premiere of Philip Glass’ The Triumph of the Octagon, a CSO commission that he wrote and dedicated to Maestro Muti.