Monday, May 05, 2008

Beware of metaphors

...especially outside of your native language. Funny bit from the Times article about Muti stepping up to the podium in Chicago:

"When I left La Scala, I thought it was time for me to be absolutely free, like the birds in the air," he said. "Birds go around and they enjoy their happiness, their freedom. But sometimes it can happen they find a tree and they like to stop on a tree, and they didn't know about the tree before. It doesn't mean one tree is better than another tree. It just happens at the right moment in life."

Wait I got lost in there. You didn't know about Chicago before? Or are we actually talking about plants now? I hear eucalyptus trees are nice. I will say it is brave of Muti to take on the conducting gig if I am reading this altogether wrong and he has, in fact, become a bird.

Still hoping to go to Macbeth though I think it may be fairly well sold...

3 comments:

Alex said...

Good work Chicago. I suspect CSO + Muti will = hot. I also like how the NYPhil has been sweating him for like the past decade and he kept shutting them down. Dude. That's gotta hurt.

Will said...

I think he knew about Chicago per se, it's just that he didn't know about Chicago as a warm, welcoming, exciting arts scene. One that has deep roots, one might say if one were expanding a metaphor, and many branches.

I'm just saying.

Willym said...

Just got back from the Muti Fest that is Whitsun in Salzburg - he's been extended there at Director until 2011. And frankly given the two performances - I'm hoping to blog about them this weekend - he can land on any tree he wants. The man is, IMHO, a god.

Lucky Chicago.