Robin Mitchell-Boyask <[log in to unmask]> says of Muti:

>I've never found his machine-gun tempi and smothering of singers
>particularly satisfying.

I assume this does not refer to his opera recordings.  I have seen quite
a few documentaries on Italian TV, usually very late at night, of Muti's
rehearsals at La Scala.  Nothing I have seen supports this view nor,
indeed, do any of his opera performances that I have attended.  The
"smothering of singers" can only be judged if one is there otherwise,
I believe, one has to look to the engineers and their recording or
broadcast transmission balance.

The only machine-gun tempi I recall in Italian opera came from Toscanini,
surely (on disc, of course)? Strict rhythmic discipline in Italian opera as
manifest by Gui, Giulini (pre-1980), Muti & Chailly (and, yes, Abbado) is,
I suggest, something else?

John G. Deacon
Home page: www.ctv.es/USERS/j.deacon