![\"Verdi](\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/corriereMutiCDs2.jpg\")
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By ANDREW POWELL RAVENNA \u2014 Imprints, sub-brands, and discreet licensing entities were once a way for artists with bargaining power to secure fatter stakes in the published output of their work. Among conductors, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein and Nikolaus Harnoncourt enjoyed the privilege.<\/p>\n Are such endeavors still viable, given social media and the glutted commercial market for sound and video recordings? One artist who is surely finding out is Riccardo Muti<\/a>. Some years ago he set up RMM<\/a>, or RM Music Srl, here on the neat stone alley linking Dante\u2019s tomb with Teatro Alighieri, main venue of the Ravenna Festival.<\/p>\n This is, sources say, a family business intended to provide income streams into the future for the maestro\u2019s children: Francesco, 45, an architect; Chiara, 43, actress and stage director; and Domenico, 37, laureato in legge<\/em> and in charge of contracts.<\/p>\n Holding \u201call the image and recording rights of Riccardo Muti,\u201d no less, RMM produces, publishes, and licenses on its own account and in association with such names as Corriere della Sera<\/a> and CSO Resound<\/a> \u2014 the former an Italian daily newspaper, the latter a nine-year-old Chicago Symphony Orchestra \u201cresponse to the upheaval in the music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Unlike those departed maestros coddled by Bertelsmann, Sony or Universal, Muti is charting an autonomous, probably arduous, path involving rights-retention, brand-building, and deal-adjusted marketing strategies. On its own, RMM lacks clout. In association with others, it must permit assorted offerings and suffer faults in packaging and distribution.<\/p>\n Worthy products bearing RMM\u2019s stamp-like logo face the same hurdles to profitability nowadays confronting the conglomerates, on less publicity. It is practically a secret, for instance, that three new Muti-led Verdi opera recordings arrived on the market this past spring.<\/p>\n Nonetheless RMM operates as cagily as a pure-play licensor, disclosing little online. For this post, it declined an invitation to expound on mission or plans. RCS MediaGroup<\/a>, which runs the newspaper and calls RMM a \u201cpartner,\u201d said it had to confer before confirming the success of a lengthy recent operazione congiunta<\/em>, and in the end could not.<\/p>\n The conductor began discernibly to tighten control over recordings of his work after Decca\u2019s DVD release of the 2006 Salzburg Die Zauberfl\u00f6te<\/em>. This was and remains his last new release on a \u201cmajor\u201d label, a remarkable halt considering his eminence.<\/p>\n Rights started to move to RMM almost certainly through revised clauses in Muti\u2019s engagement contracts, including those with orchestras, opera companies and festivals whose output is broadcast using public money.<\/p>\n The pace of Muti releases then slowed. In the nine years through last December, only a handful of new orchestral discs appeared, and only three opera issues \u2014 a 2008 Salzburg Otello<\/em> DVD on the lately launched C Major label; a 2011 Otello<\/em> audio CD set from Chicago; and Mercadante\u2019s I due Figaro<\/em>, recorded in 2011 for Ducale.<\/p>\n More recently, though, any instinct to restrict supply has given way to pragmatism. RMM products have grown in number despite market conditions. (The glut was not in any case constraining promoters of less bankable artists, or issuers of pirate Muti discs.) Even with these, however, an attractive backlog remains of unreleased broadcast recordings of the conductor\u2019s work.<\/p>\n RMM as a standalone label tends toward specialty discs, many featuring the Orchestra Cherubini<\/a>, based here. An 11-hour DVD set of orchestral rehearsals<\/a>, led in Italian and wide-ranging in repertory, will be among the most prized of these long-term. Packaged in saintly white, it sells for \u20ac99. Then there is a 100-minute documentary<\/a> about conducting<\/a> Verdi; \u201cassolutamente trascinante,\u201d<\/em> reads one plaudit.<\/p>\n The lineup, RMM-produced, can be sampled and acquired on the company\u2019s website, but not, pointedly, at the ubiquitous online retailer or through channels outside Italy.<\/p>\n Of RMM\u2019s deals, one with Warner Classics<\/a> presumably earns revenue. The 2013 Verdi documentary, filmed in Chicago and Rome and directed by Gabriele Cazzola<\/a>, fittingly caps the American company\u2019s new single-box reissue<\/a> of all eleven of Muti\u2019s former EMI Verdi opera sets. This represents something of a bargain, at about $75, under a dark and piercing RMM cover image.<\/p>\n RMM\u2019s largest project has been with the Corriere\u2019s distribution arm: a \u20ac317 collection<\/a> of 32 Muti titles (roughly 50 CDs) chosen by the artist himself and classically presented in black and bronze. Finalized in August after a 32-week rollout, it carries the banner La musica \u00e8 la mia vita<\/em>.<\/p>\n It is also, alas, a jumble. Most of the discs are reissues stretching as far back as 1970s concerto recordings with Sviatoslav Richter and the old Aida<\/em> with the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Later efforts from Philadelphia and Vienna occupy much space. Inevitably many collectors will already own parts of the set.<\/p>\n Yet hidden in the huge box are three legitimate new Verdi opera recordings that would once have caused a global stir. They originate in strongly cast live performances during the Verdi bicentennial year of 2013 at the Teatro dell\u2019Opera di Roma<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u2014 Nabucco<\/a><\/em>, with Tatiana Serjan (as Abigaille), Sonia Ganassi (Fenena), Francesco Meli (Ismaele), Luca Salsi (Nabucco) and Riccardo Zanellato (Zaccaria);<\/p>\n \u2014 I due Foscari<\/a><\/em>, the most recent of seventeen Verdi operas now in Muti\u2019s repertory, with Serjan (Lucrezia), Meli (Jacopo) and Salsi (Francesco); and<\/p>\n \u2014 Ernani<\/a><\/em>, with Serjan (Elvira), Meli (Ernani), Salsi (Carlo) and Ildar Abdrazakov (Silva).<\/p>\n Rome\u2019s production of the biblical opera had made news two years earlier when Muti lectured<\/a> Italy\u2019s politicos \u2014 President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi each attended at least once \u2014 on the perils of low cultural subsidies. Halting one performance, he related Italy\u2019s destiny to the \u201cbeautiful and lost\u201d Jewish homeland before indulging the house<\/a> in a leaden V\u00e0, pensiero, sull\u2019ali dorate<\/em> sing-along.<\/p>\n Aptly enough for a newspaper company, Corriere della Sera\u2019s slow rollout took place on newsstands across this country, allowing buyers to skip unwanted titles if they could do without the \u201cunedited little book of [Muti] memories and anecdotes\u201d included in the set.<\/p>\n Cost per title: a modest \u20ac10.90, whether one, two, or, for Guillaume Tell<\/em> in Italian, four discs. News vendors on Piazza dei Caduti<\/a> and Piazza del Popolo<\/a> here reported sales of \u201ctanti\u201d<\/em> discs and \u201cun successo,\u201d<\/em> evidently freer to speak than RCS MediaGroup.<\/p>\n At the Corriere\u2019s online store, shipping can be arranged worldwide. But product details are missing. Shoppers see only the front covers and a footnote about the recording source. The new Verdi items come up without casts.<\/p>\n With the Chicago orchestra, RMM has weaker terms. The CSO made clear this month that it holds sole copyright in CSO Resound recordings and that RMM\u2019s stamp, present by agreement on five of its published titles, indicates no financial participation by the Muti family entity. Nor is the label intended to function as a profit center within the umbrella CSO nonprofit, the orchestra said.<\/p>\n RMM-branded discs and downloads on CSO Resound are a motley array, no doubt reflecting goals and realities other than Muti\u2019s artistic emphases as Chicago Symphony Orchestra<\/a> music director.<\/p>\n Issued: a Berlioz pairing of Symphonie fantastique<\/em> with L\u00e9lio, ou Le retour \u00e0 la vie<\/em> (2010, much delayed); Sch\u00f6nberg\u2019s Kol Nidre<\/em> coupled with Shostakovich\u2019s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo (2012, much delayed); Mason Bates<\/a>\u2019 symphony Alternative Energy<\/em> and Anna Clyne<\/a>\u2019s \u201csonic portrait\u201d Night Ferry<\/em> (2012); numbers from the first two of Prokofiev\u2019s Romeo and Juliet<\/em> suites (2013); and Bates\u2019 Anthology of Fantastic Zoology<\/em> (2015).<\/p>\n Those realities have to do with how orchestras raise funds in the U.S. \u2014 meaning conditions or incentives attendant on specific subsidizing grants and gifts \u2014 and naturally whether a product is considered saleable. The Zoology<\/em> item has sold relatively well, the CSO said, without providing figures.<\/p>\n Having no stake, managers at RMM have no reason to care about CSO Resound repertory, but other observers away from South Michigan Avenue<\/a> \u2014 and record buyers \u2014 must wonder at the lack of music from the Classical period, where Muti excels. His discerning Schubert, for example. Moreover the CSO would not confirm it will issue the Verdi Macbeth<\/em> it recorded in 2013, or Falstaff<\/em>, basketed a few months ago.<\/p>\n As for RMM\u2019s stamp, it appears merely \u201cin support of [Muti] and his wider activities around the world,\u201d explained the orchestra with lawyerly reticence. (It is omitted from two Verdi issues on CSO Resound, the mentioned Otello<\/em> and a recording of the Requiem Mass made before Muti assumed his post.)<\/p>\n CSO Resound gives RMM visibility Stateside and has good distribution, using multiple online retailers for disc and download versions of most titles.<\/p>\n The label\u2019s packaging, on the other hand, with crude typography and slipshod billing, cannot match RMM products created in Italy. Take the Berlioz disc. Finally released in 2015, five years after being recorded, its cover declares \u201cChicago Symphony\u201d three times, plus \u201cCSO\u201d; lists the conductor before<\/em> the orchestra, then the soloists, whose names are separated by a slash, and chorus; and allows the most noteworthy item, L\u00e9lio<\/em>, to get lost essentially.<\/p>\n Muti the publisher, then, faces a host of hurdles. For RMM to be viable, never mind guarantee long-term family income, it needs all elements pulling in its favor. It must balance the pros and cons of independence against those of joint ventures while avoiding unforced errors such as caginess, intentional product delays and narrowed distribution.<\/p>\n At a glance, its best prospects lie in content from tax-supported broadcasts, as newly marketed. WFMT<\/a>, WQXR<\/a>, Italy\u2019s RAI<\/a> and Austria\u2019s ORF<\/a> have all aired the conductor\u2019s work since 2006, filmed or taped. Standards are high, and in terms of production the output is largely ready for release \u2014 ready, but at present held up and falling to pirates.<\/p>\n Listing just operas, and not counting items discussed above, RMM may have \u201crecording rights\u201d in: Il ritorno di Don Calandrino<\/em> (Salzburg) and Sancta Susanna<\/em> (New York), from 2007; Cos\u00ec fan tutte<\/em> and Don Pasquale<\/em> (both Vienna), 2008; Iphig\u00e9nie en Aulide<\/em> (Rome) and Mo\u00efse et Pharaon<\/em> (Salzburg), 2009; Attila<\/em> (New York) and Orfeo ed Euridice<\/em> (Salzburg), 2010; Macbeth<\/em> (Salzburg), 2011; Simon Boccanegra<\/em> (Rome), filmed in 2012; and Manon Lescaut<\/em> (Rome), 2014 audio.<\/p>\n There is a solid if limited market on DVD or CD for this body of work, and one instinctively wishes the family venture every success in using the associated rights, even if the era has likely ended when imprints could assure fortunes.<\/p>\n That said, Riccardo Muti\u2019s personal priority may be something else: legacy. His own, and more emphatically the artistic traditions he values. Hence the not necessarily lucrative documenting of preparation and rehearsal methods in RMM productions. It is no coincidence his Italian Opera Academy<\/a> is headquartered on the same alley.<\/p>\n Images \u00a9 RM Music Srl and RCS MediaGroup<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: October 29, 2016<\/span><\/p>\n
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