Chicago Symphony Riccardo Muti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Photo: Todd Rosenberg)
RAVENNA, Italy (AP) — Conductor Riccardo Muti has once again reopened the Italian musical season in his adopted hometown of Ravenna after another — and if all goes well perhaps final — round of pandemic closures. With a purposeful nod and flick of his baton, the 79-year-old on Sunday ended what has been an unexpectedly long silence in Italian theaters, enrapturing a socially distanced audience with the Vienna Philharmonic‘s first live performance since the fall. Muti called the experience of the past year “an unnatural global experiment” that had left the world “stunned.”
Colleen Barry for the Associated Press
