Last week Riccardo Muti took the podium at the New York Philharmonic to conduct a formidable program dominated by Schubert’s monumental Symphony No. 9, aptly called the “Great.”
Naturally, given his vast experience in Italian opera, Mr. Muti brought keen insights to the performances that he drew from the Philharmonic. More than that, he approached these works with his searching musical intellect fully engaged. It was a revelation to hear Verdi’s moody, episodic Overture to “Giovanna d’Arco” played with such exacting accuracy and stylish flair.
Verdi wrote “Les Veprês Siciliennes” (“The Sicilian Vespers”) for the Paris Opera, where house policy demanded the inclusion of a ballet in every grand opera. So into this story of 13th-century conflicts between France and Sicily, Verdi and his librettists inserted a 30-minute ballet with a flimsy dramatic pretext: the governor of Sicily, hosting a ball, presents an allegorical ballet about the four seasons to entertain his guests. For subsequent productions in Italy, Verdi did not care at all if the ballet was dropped.
There is a potpourri quality to this elaborate ballet: a series of varied dances, tuneful episodes and atmospheric mood music. But there was not a drop of condescension in the urgent, supple and nuanced performance that Mr. Muti conducted. During fevered outbursts, the precision and cool confidence of the playing was astonishing.
Yet, in breezy episodes, when bel canto melodies soared over classic Verdi orchestral accompaniments, the musicians played with such grace and confidence that sometimes Mr. Muti let his arms drop to his sides and simply listened with pleasure. During one lyrical solo, the ageless principal clarinetist, Stanley Drucker, played with pliancy and expressive shadings that any Verdi tenor would covet.
Puccini’s youthful “Preludio Sinfonico” begins with sighing string harmonies and wistful lyricism that prefigure ruminative passages of “Madama Butterfly.” Soon, however, the music teems with volatile outbursts and brassy exuberance. In the glittering performance Mr. Muti conducted, “Preludio Sinfonico” sounded as if Puccini were channeling fantasies of a great symphonic work into an 11-minute piece. Once he got this out of his system, though, he went back to the theater, where he belonged.
For all its orchestral razzle-dazzle and harmonic richness, Respighi’s “Pini di Roma” sounds like a hyperinflated 25-minute film score in endless search of a film to bond with. But I never expect to hear a better performance than the rhapsodic, shimmering and tautly paced account Mr. Muti drew from the Philharmonic.
Those players who are still grieving that Mr. Muti turned down the directorship in New York only to accept Chicago should get over it already. Alan Gilbert looks poised to do great things. But the Philharmonic musicians certainly play well for this Italian perfectionist maestro.
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