Muti plays Verdi to save the villa in Sant’Agata

A black grand piano and a floor lamp, resting on a platform; and behind them, the imposing silhouette of Villa Verdi, in Sant’Agata di Villanova sull’Arda, near Busseto. The residence where Verdi lived with his wife Giuseppina Strepponi for some fifty years and composed most of his operas; purchased by the State in 2025, but closed three years earlier by Verdi’s heirs, the Carrara family, following unresolved inheritance disputes. To this day, it remains inaccessible to the public and is in a clearly derelict state. In this garden, overgrown with scrub, and before an audience of around a hundred guests, Riccardo Muti launches an urgent appeal through Verdi’s music: ‘This is not a concert, but a gathering of musicians who wish to draw attention back to this abandoned place, so that it may once again belong to everyone; a sacred place, which must become a pilgrimage destination, because people all over the world have been and continue to be nourished by Verdi’s music.’

Muti takes his seat at the piano, and together with the singers Michele Pertusi, Mara Gaudenzi, Damiana Mizzi, Giovanni Sala and Luca Salsi, he performs famous excerpts from *Nabucco*, *Rigoletto*, *Il trovatore*, *Macbeth* and *Falstaff*; followed by the ‘Notturno’, a dreamy and intimate piece, a rarity by the young Verdi written for three voices and an obbligato flute – played here by Bianca Fiorito, a musician with the Cherubini Orchestra and now with the Münchner Philharmoniker. The piece lends its title to the evening, and the artists dedicate it to Verdi. What is particularly striking, beyond the vocal performances marked by sincere emotion, is Muti’s rigorous yet delicate piano playing. Then, the final surprise: the lights go out, and only the central shutter of the weather-beaten façade is illuminated from within; from there, the ‘Lacrimosa’ from Verdi’s Requiem resounds, in a recent recording by Muti himself. A dramatic touch, ‘a moment of reflection’, says the maestro; it also sounds like a warning.

Just a few hours earlier, during a press conference in the small theatre in Busseto, Muti had launched a scathing attack on Italian governments – “whether centre, right or left, it doesn’t matter” – all of whom were seriously to blame for having shown no interest in the fate of Villa Verdi.

For the Notturno evening at Villa Verdi, three people are arriving from Rome: the Minister for Culture, Alessandro Giuli; the Minister for Tourism, Gianmarco Mazzi; and the Minister for European Affairs, Tommaso Foti; Salvatore Nastasi, president of the SIAE, is also present. And before the musical event, with its message of warning, begins, Giuli, speaking privately, reassures the audience: ‘We have already set the process in motion to restore the villa. Since September 2024, the Ministry of Culture has allocated around twenty million euros to acquire the property and to carry out restoration work on the building and the surrounding garden’.

Muti then addressed the political authorities: ‘For the first time, I find myself in the presence of three government ministers, to whom I must say thank you because their presence is a positive sign for the restoration work, which I was unaware had already begun.’ In short, peace has been made. Even if the pace of Italian bureaucracy and politics never ceases to be disheartening. And how long will it take for everything to be ready for Villa Verdi to reopen? “A year. Even if it means I have to paint the walls myself,” replies Giuli jokingly. And Muti, in front of everyone, promises emphatically: ‘Once the work is finished, I’ll be back here again.’ Perhaps to conduct *Falstaff*, in line with a wish that Verdi himself confided to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, whilst composing this, his final opera.