The night before, Riccardo Muti had been in his element conducting hundreds of musicians in Verdi choruses performed to thousands in a sports stadium. This morning, however, sitting in his home in Ravenna, Italy, the 76-year-old maestro — perhaps the last “big beast” still prowling the classical music world — is in more reflective mode.
“I have had a happy life, musically and personally, but now I am at the end, with one foot in the grave,” he declares mournfully, then bursts into a sardonic cackle that would not disgrace the witches in Verdi’s Macbeth. The man who has commanded three of the world’s finest orchestras and two of Italy’s greatest opera houses clearly has no intention of hanging up his baton yet.
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