“It is a crime to cut it.” Exactly one month after turning 85, Riccardo Muti interrupted the Granada Festival concert on the night of June 28 to defend the ballet of The Sicilian Vespersso many times suppressed in the productions of this grand opera written for Paris in 1855. “It is the most important symphonic page of Giuseppe Verdi,” he stated in Italian. And he attacked both the stage directors, “who don’t know what to do with this ballet”, and the French orchestras of the time, who considered the music of “Maestro Merdì” very difficult to play.
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75th Granada Festival
Works by Giuseppe Verdi, Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel.
Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra. Riccardo Muti, director.
Palace of Charles V, June 28.