Riccardo Muti’s tenure as the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which will come to an end next season after thirteen years, is a relationship worth celebrating. That valedictory season will be understandably studded with tantalizing events, yet as the current one winds down, the festivities can be said to have already begun. On June 23 he and the orchestra gave the first of three concert performances of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, the last of such acclaimed opera concerts that have graced his tenure, nearly all of which were by Verdi, including Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff, and Aida.
It goes without saying that the eminent conductor has a unique affinity with Verdi, but the point is perhaps best made by contrasting his Verdi interpretations with prevailing performance standards. Others are often content to rely on the operas’ surface vigor to carry the day, to bow to stylistic preferences of star singers (such as unwritten high notes), and to follow now-traditional practices that, in many cases, arose after the composer’s death. In Muti’s hands the music invariably has not just greater fidelity to the score but also greater expressive depth and nuance.
In remarks delivered at a reception following the Ballo performance, Muti shared insights to his approach to Verdi, emphasizing in particular the importance of historical continuity. Verdi is not often likened to Mozart, but Muti sees the Italian composer’s operas as an outgrowth of the Classical style of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, with such composers in turn having antecedents in the Neapolitan school of eighteenth-century masters such as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Giovanni Paisiello, and Niccolò Jommelli.
Muti and the orchestra this season completed the full cycle of Beethoven symphonies in performances that, among other virtues, cultivated transparent textures and architectural clarity. These qualities were similarly present in Ballo, not least in the instrumental prelude, which consists of themes drawn from the opera. As they emerged one by one, they formed, more than ever, a précis of the opera to come. Other instrumental passages also made strong impressions, such as the sinister opening of the Ulrica scene and the lyrical beginning of Act II, which was invested with special feeling.
Such moments underscored another advantage of Muti’s concert performances. One might think that an orchestra like the CSO, which had previously performed only excerpts from Ballo, might be at a disadvantage compared to an experienced opera-house orchestra. But the advantages of hearing a great orchestra that has newly studied an opera cannot be overestimated, while pit orchestras, with their fluctuating personnel, are more apt to give performances dictated by what was done last time. And when the orchestra is right there on stage, you really do hear the music differently.
Un ballo in maschera has an especially tangled history because its subject of regicide—the assassination of Gustav III of Sweden in 1792—was objected to by censors, first in Naples and later in Rome, where the opera finally had its premiere in 1859, its setting shifted to the unlikely venue of colonial Boston. (Muti used the critical edition of Ballo edited by Ilaria Narici.) But Verdi’s music was conceived with the Swedish setting in mind and often has a lighthearted quality, especially early on, that points up his affinity with Mozart—something one could sense in this performance.
The opera, of course, turns serious and ultimately tragic, and Muti worked surely with the singers to bring out its stormy passions as well as the characters’ intimate feelings. As Riccardo, the Gustav-like figure who is infatuated with his loyal aide’s wife, Amelia, the appealing tenor Francesco Meli—whom Muti has favored for other Verdi assignments—sang stylishly and communicated the role’s swagger, though he occasionally strained. (Reportedly, he was in fine form for the second performance, on June 25.)
Joyce El-Khoury, our Amelia, does not have the plush, well-rounded sound of a conventional Verdi soprano, but her keen, rather tart voice offers its own rewards, and she sang with temperament and exemplary musicality. She gave gripping performances of both her arias, making a special moment of the passionate phrase at the end of the first with its ascent to high C.
Luca Salsi, another veteran of Muti performances, excelled as Renato, Riccardo’s aide who exacts revenge for his supposed betrayal, not comprehending that Riccardo and Amelia had thought better of pursuing an affair. His menacing delivery of the aria “Eri tu che macchiavi quell’anima” neatly counterbalanced the solicitousness Renato shows Riccardo earlier in the opera. The Russian mezzo-soprano Yulia Matochkina was terrific as Ulrica, the fortune-teller who predicts Riccardo’s death at the hand of a friend, making an especially fine impression with her strong yet attractive low notes. Damiana Mizzi sang securely and with animation as the irrepressible page Oscar. The celebrated Chicago Symphony Chorus was prepared for the occasion by Donald Palumbo, the chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera.
Next season, in lieu of an opera, the orchestra and chorus led by Muti will give Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, which Muti performed for the first time in his career last summer at the Salzburg Festival in performances that coincided with his eightieth birthday.