The language of Italian is the language of legato!’ Riccardo Muti is in fine form, holding forth in a lecture-concert about Bellini’s Norma, the chosen opera for the latest edition of his Italian Opera Academy. We’re at the stylish Fondazione Prada in Milan, which is an institution dedicated to contemporary art and culture, but the 82-year-old conductor is dedicated to preserving something much older: Italian opera. It was while being interviewed at the Salzburg Festival last summer that he bemoaned the state of opera and how conductors are marginalised in a system where ‘stage directors have now become the gods’.

Some years ago, Muti decided that he wanted to devote more time to young students, to pass on the knowledge he has acquired over a long career in the orchestra pit. He can trace his lineage back to Verdi. His teacher was Antonino Votto, who was the assistant to Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini knew Verdi and played cello in the premiere of Otello. ‘All the things that Votto taught me, you don’t find in the books.’ In 2015, he launched the Italian Opera Academy, a residential course for young conductors and repetiteurs. ‘You must come!’ he insisted. An invitation duly followed.

At the lecture-concert, Muti introduces the opera, focusing on Bellini’s orchestration, sometimes even deconstructing the score. There then follow seven days of intense open rehearsals where four repetiteurs and four conductors, who have successfully auditioned for a coveted place, are put through their paces with a young cast and the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini to prepare a concert performance of highlights. All this takes place under the watchful eyes of Muti, who sits, hawk-like, by the podium, ready to leap into action.

His anecdotes are humorous, often self-deprecating, but his interventions can be pithy. ‘You want to be a conductor of Italian opera?’ he asks Izabela Kociołek. ‘When are you going to learn Italian?’ Or encourages them to take charge: ‘Don’t say please, when asking the orchestra to do something. Tell them. You’re the boss.’

It’s difficult being the boss, I imagine, when Muti is sitting at your elbow, but everyone is keen to learn. Speaking once the Academy has ended, American conductor Clancy Ellis points out that ‘the biggest challenge was that Maestro Muti was coaching everyone simultaneously – the conductors, the singers, the orchestra – so everyone had to be quick on their feet to learn and to change. But this was also the biggest advantage because it was so transparent to everyone how you put an opera together.’

Monica Conesa, the promising young soprano singing the title role, is glued to Muti, even in scenes in which Norma is not singing. You can sense her soaking everything up, like a sponge. ‘It’s so rare for singers to get such a long time rehearsing with the orchestra,’ she explains. ‘The relationship you build up with the orchestra creates an incredible chemistry. I love that all the rehearsals are open to the public – they’re my favourite part, the crafting process.’ I note that there are several students in the audience, clutching scores that they later ask Muti to sign.

During an interval, Muti wanders over for a chat. He tells me which young Italian opera conductors he rates [Michele Mariotti, Daniele Rustioni] and we gossip about recent productions. He’s full of enthusiasm for his young orchestra – the ‘ragazzi’ as he refers to them fondly – and the eagerness of the conductors and repetiteurs. But what, I wonder, is the greatest thing he learned from Votto? ‘Fidelity in what is written,’ he replies. ‘Not come scritto but to the fact that every note in Italian opera is directly linked to text’ – a verticality. In that respect, Parsifal is easier to conduct than Otello!’

He points to the end of ‘Casta diva’, Norma’s iconic aria. ‘Some traditions have the soprano take an unwritten high note. This is nonsense. Norma sings a lower A which joins with the chorus at the end of the prayer. This high note is completely wrong – it’s Norma being the diva instead of the priestess!’

Conesa sings the aria gorgeously – she learnt the role especially for the Academy – and I’m only sorry that my day watching five hours of rehearsals only takes me into the first half hour of the opera and I don’t get to hear her sing the Act 3 duet with Pollione, ‘In mia man’.

‘I love his fidelity to the work and his attention to detail,’ Conesa enthuses. ‘He loves to craft the character and puts a meaning behind everything. “The phrase doesn’t begin with what you sing, it begins with the orchestra.” These are things you live for – crafting it on stage, constantly developing and refining.’

Kociołek reveals that the biggest lesson she learnt during the process was, ‘Trust the score and do what the composer asks. He was so strict about the notes. At every point he said, “You know, it’s written in this way, so why do you do so much additional stuff that is unimportant, disturbing the musicians?” This changed my whole world.’

The Academy is clearly a huge deal for all its participants. What is the draw? ‘It’s such a stepping stone for opera conducting,’ Ellis explains. ‘In the United States particularly, it’s so hard to get started in opera conducting. It’s not a big part of our curriculum at the conservatory.’

‘It was on my bucket list for a long time,’ Kociołek tells me. The young Polish conductor is off to study with Jorma Panula, but it’s opera that she’s committed to – and she has already started learning Italian!

But the Academy is also about making connections. ‘This is the next generation,’ Conesa reflects, ‘and I’m sure I’ll be working with them in the future.’ 

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of Opera Now. Never miss an issue – subscribe today