Reinout Bosman
Have you seen the traditional New Year's concert at the Vienna State Opera? This year's concert had a very Italian feel to it when I saw who entered the Opera stage and stood on the trestle: the champion of culture and music, the man who shook the Italian Republic when he had a dispute with Carlo. Fontana (general director of the Scala in Milan) who was eventually fired (many say thanks to him), as a result of which his own orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of the Scala in Milan, gave him a vote of no confidence and forced him to resign…
From Philadelphia to Vienna
Passionate and fearful. He conducted the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra for many years and was also not afraid of the famous Berliner and, subsequently, the Vienna Philharmonic. The fact that he was allowed to conduct the New Year's concert for the fifth time was more of a home game than a major challenge for the now 76-year-old conductor.
Riccardo Muti, about whom else can I speak, once again made a real spectacle of the prestigious concert this year and led the orchestra through the Strauss melodies with a very strong Italian beat. And how beautiful it was. A must to look back.
Do we actually know him?
But how do we know Muti? I think if you don't listen to much classical music, you probably haven't heard of him before. Or perhaps the affair in the Scala that was widely reported in the Italian (and some international) newspapers. I especially remember Muti from Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco where he made a statement in 2012 by following the famous Go Thought to shut down the opera and give a short speech in which he denounced the Berlusconi government for the extreme cutbacks in art and culture.
Go Thought
Muti decided to ask the audience it Go Thought sing along and expressed the hope that it O Mia Patria si Bella e Perdutas (O my homeland, so beautiful and so lost) would not become a reality. Small detail: he just did this in the Opera della Repubblica in Rome. "We're home now, so we better discuss a few things." When Berlusconi and ex-president Napolitano then came together in Milan to watch the Nabucco one evening, Muti didn't say a word and let the orchestra continue playing. The message had already gotten across.
And now the New Year's concert again
Yes, there he was for the fifth time: an Italian who An der Schöne Blauen Donau and the Radetzky Mars conducts and indeed chooses unknown works by Strauss, because with them he can link to Strauss' sources of inspiration that came from Italy: Verdi, Donizetti, Puccini. A wonderful but very successful combination. By the way, you can watch the New Year's concert via Missed broadcast.
The day before, December 31, what are you actually doing in Italy?
Not so much different than in the Netherlands, you might initially think: friends come together, there is a long and abundant meal, a toast at 12 o'clock and then you go into town for a walk or to go dancing. That is what you as an outsider think you can expect. If you dive into cultural Italy, you will see a lot of other, sometimes somewhat remarkable things!
A happy New Year
Well known to all of you: Italians are superstitious. And how! Everything that has to do with happiness and unhappiness is widely reported. For example, the number 13 stands for luck and 17 for unhappiness. For example, in the old days when you had 15 friends to eat, the wife had to stand so that the number 16 was guaranteed and no misfortune was called while eating. You could just choke on your piece of meat or fish.
Italians also show that happiness ends up in the food. Lentils are eaten on New Year's Eve. These stand for money coins, so the more lentils you eat, the bigger your fortune will be for the new year. In addition, bean dishes are often made (depends on the region, in any case it is served in Tuscany) and it will not surprise you that you thus start the new year with a hearty meal!
red underwear
Yes, you read that right… In December you will find more red underwear in most stores than in the rest of the year. Because red underwear stands for fertility, new blood and love. In short: if you really want to think about expanding your family in the new year, red underpants on New Year's Eve might just help!
Being together and fraternizing
That, after all, is what the old and new are all about. And the combination of music and food is a very important one, at least in my life in Italy. How beautiful is the fraternization when you see an Italian in Vienna conducting a concert that is watched by more than a billion people, while Italy is still recovering from all the food and gathering of the night before.
Let us perhaps see it as the congratulations for this new year: that we may all enjoy each other even more under the pleasant and good circumstances of the small things that make life, such as good food and beautiful music. The Italian tradition and customs are there, the music is made anyway, as long as the Mutis of this world continue to work and set concert halls such as the Wiener Opera on fire.
Wishing you a very happy and prosperous new year!
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