The aristocrat of conductors, the autocrat of the baton, Riccardo Muti cuts a noble figure at the head of any orchestra, and ennobles every ensemble through his charismatic personality and red-blooded musicality. In many respects, including his unwillingness to compromise over artistic matters, he is reminiscent of the great Arturo Toscanini, who was also a demanding ruler at the podium. Born in Naples in 1941, Muti studied at the Conservatory of his native city, where one of his teachers was the later celebrated film-score composer Nino Rota. He made his breakthrough as a conductor in 1967, when he won an important competition, and was appointed principal conductor of the prestigious Maggio Musicale in Florence in 1969. His rise to international fame set in with his guest conductorships at the Salzburg Festival in 1971 and at the head of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1972. Muti became principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra a few years later, and was named its music director in 1980, succeeding the legendary Eugene Ormandy. Always a conductor of both the symphonic and operatic repertoire, Muti advanced to the post of music director of La Scala in Milan in 1986. The 1990s saw Muti consolidating his reputation at the head of this venerable institution, as well as in countless other high-caliber venues around the world. Today he is one of the undisputed giants among the leading conductors of the world. “Così fan tutte” contains some of Mozart’s loveliest arias and the greatest number of ensembles in any of his operas. Although its libretto is often said to be frivolous, it is a foil for Mozart’s lucid and utterly non-Romantic view of the sexes. Director Roberto de Simone captures both the comedic and tragic core of the work from within and makes its depth palpable. Since the beginning of the 1990s, conductor Riccardo Muti has been increasingly making a name for himself as a Mozart specialist. Austria’s leading daily “Die Presse” gushed: “Roberto de Simone simply directs the work itself in harmony with Riccardo Muti, who does the same in the orchestra pit .. a triumphal reprise at the Vienna State Opera.” And the “Neue Kronen Zeitung” reported that “Muti wonderfully polished his successful Vienna ‘Così’ with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra: Mozart played with an abundance of freshness, impulsiveness and humor.”