Italy's next top conductor is coming to your hometown
The country's crumbling and underfunded musical institutions are losing Italian talent to emigration
By E.B.
AND now they’re a quartet. Gianandrea Noseda, the music director of Turin’s Teatro Regio, is to become music director of Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, the fourth Italian in recent years to be tapped for a major American orchestra. He joins Riccardo Muti at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Nicola Luisotti at the San Francisco Opera and Corrado Rovaris at the Philadelphia Opera. In addition, Fabio Luisi holds the position of Principal Conductor at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in addition to his role as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera.
Behind them, an entire generation of Italian conductors is making a mark at leading orchestras and opera houses. When “The Barber of Seville”, one of the most beloved works in the opera repertoire, opens at the Opéra National de Paris next month, it will be conducted by a young Italian, Giacomo Sagripanti (pictured). The Paris Opera’s production of another favourite, “La Traviata”, will be conducted by yet another, Michele Mariotti, while Mr Luisotti and Pier Giorgio Morandi will conduct “Rigoletto” and Daniele Calligari will conduct “Il Trovatore”.
According to Marco Armiliato, a Genoa-born conductor, Italy is experiencing what he calls the Federer Effect: one famous practitioner inspiring lots of younger people to pursue the same path. Italy has, of course, long excelled in the performance of opera, with generations of Italian singers enjoying stellar careers on stages at home and abroad. But for decades, Italian conducting was dominated by Arturo Toscanini who, before he died in 1957, had been music director at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala and the Metropolitan Opera (the Met) as well as the New York Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. After his death, his heirs Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti went on to great success, conducting both opera and symphonic works. Mr Abbado, who died two years ago aged 80, became chief conductor at both La Scala and the Berlin Philharmonic, with Muti succeeding him at La Scala and now leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
And now, Italian conductors are everywhere. The fact that Italians a generation younger than Mr Abbado and Mr Muti have followed in their footsteps may not be surprising. What’s more remarkable is that men in their twenties and early thirties have chosen conducting as a career, given that Italy’s opera houses—the bread and butter of the country’s music-making—are in such poor shape: productions are frequently cancelled and artists are habitually paid late. Despite that, “conductors are sprouting like mushrooms after the rain,” observed the 74-year-old Mr Muti in a recent interview.
One of them is 32-year-old Daniele Rustioni, who has already conducted at London’s Royal Opera House, the Berlin Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich as well as the Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and other leading Italian orchestras. Indeed, in 2012 he took over as music director of the Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari’s famed opera house. Two years later, he quit when the Teatro Petruzzelli could no longer pay its bills. Life in Italy can be hard to leave behind, he explains, so “the Italian opera crisis is a blessing in a way, because it’s forcing us to go abroad.”
His compatriots agree. “I love to work in Italy, and we have a lot of good orchestras,” says the 33-year-old Mr Sagripanti, who performs around Europe and made his American debut with the Seattle Opera three years ago. “The Italian conservatory education is very good, but to embark on a conducting career in Italy is hard now.”
While Italian maestri don’t have a monopoly on understanding Italian opera repertoire, they bring a special understanding of the libretti. And unlike Mr Toscanini, who sailed to New York at great expense in 1908, recent entrants like Mr Rustioni jet around at minimal cost. By conducting in other countries, Italian conductors also get an incentive to move beyond the Italian fare. As the newly appointed music director of the Opéra National de Lyon, Mr Rustioni will also conduct German, French, and Russian operas.
At the Met, which with La Scala is considered to be at the pinnacle of the world's opera houses, the conductor roster this season features nine Italians, more than any other nationality. “It’s funny that there are more of us conducting at the Met than at La Scala this season,” ponders Mr Armiliato, who is leading four of those productions. Indeed, the large-scale absence of Italian maestri in Italy itself underlines the dire reality of opera in the country that invented it. Of Italy’s 13 leading opera houses, only La Fenice in Venice is currently in profit. And with Italian star conductors preferring engagements abroad over the risk of cancelled engagements at home, the musical quality at Italian opera houses will continue to decrease. “If Paris wants to do 'Traviata', they get a good Italian conductor,” notes Mr Armiliato. “If an Italian opera house with the exception of La Scala wants to do it, they wait until the last moment due to budget issues, and then they have to get whoever is available.”
Generation Toscanini’s far-flung members do perform a valuable service to their home country, acting as its unofficial ambassadors. Mr Armiliato looks on the bright side: “We Italians are very lucky to have composers whose works we can bring around the world.” But those shaky Italian venues would surely rather have the world come to Italy.
