La Scala musical director resigns

Riccardo Muti, citing continued hostility by La Scala employees, has stepped down as musical director of the opera house, ending a 19-year tenure and pitching the institution into more turmoil.

There was no immediate word on a possible successor at the Milan theater, which launched the career of Giuseppe Verdi and is a source of national pride in Italy.

The behind-the-curtains drama started weeks ago, soon after La Scala reopened in December following an extensive renovation. Muti denounced what he said was the vulgar hostility of the theater’s employees. They in turn accused him of running the opera house as his private fiefdom. Several performances were canceled because of the feud.

“It was an obligatory choice,” the 63-year-old Italian maestro said Saturday in announcing his resignation.

“Despite the signs of esteem expressed to me by the board of directors, the hostility manifested in such a coarse way by people with whom I have worked for almost 20 years makes it really impossible to carry on with a relationship of collaboration, which ought to be based on harmony and trust,” Muti said in a statement released by La Scala.

Muti’s tenure at La Scala was marked by fidelity to the intentions of composers. He restored cuts, which sometimes resulted in five- and six-hour performances, and banned interpolations in bel canto works, occasionally infuriating singers.

Last month, hundreds of employees, including musicians and stagehands, called on him to step down. They had pledged to strike for each scheduled premiere.

“To make music together isn’t only a group labor; it requires, in sharing, esteem, passion and interest and understanding, sentiments that I believed to have been the constant of these 20 years of work at La Scala Theater,” Muti said.

The ill will stemmed in part from a decision by La Scala’s board to dismiss superintendent Carlo Fontana, who had a difficult relationship with Muti. Mauro Meli, former director of La Scala’s theatrical division, replaced Fontana. Union members had demanded his resignation.

Meli described the resignation as a “very grave loss.”

Muti has always rejected accusations that he behaved like a prima donna. Last month, in a letter to Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera, he denied rumors that he had vetoed the appearance of other top maestros and insisted he always acted in La Scala’s best interest.

Muti made no mention of his plans, but his wife, Cristina Mazzavillani, said in an interview published earlier in the week that he might go abroad or to another Italian city.

Muti, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1980 to 1992, becomes a candidate to take over as music director of the New York Philharmonic when Lorin Maazel retires after the 2008-09 season. Muti was offered the chance to succeed Kurt Masur after the 2001-02 season but turned it down, citing his commitment to La Scala. Muti agreed last June to conduct four weeks per season with the Philharmonic from the 2006-07 season through 2008-09.

Among possible successors at La Scala are Riccardo Chailly, who retired as music director of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw last summer, and Daniele Gatti, music director of the Teatro Communale in Bologna and the Royal Philharmonic in London.