Has baton, will travel: Next stop, Philadelphia

NEW YORK - In classical music circles, there's only one Gatti, and he has nothing to do with the infamous American Mafia boss. Conductor Daniele Gatti, a vowel away from growing up Gotti, has carved out a distinctive profile in Europe but is suddenly omnipresent on the Eastern seaboard after years of absence.

Having just filled in for an indisposed James Levine at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's season-opening concert at Carnegie Hall, the Milan-born Gatti is conducting a revival of Aida at the Metropolitan Opera and will guest conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra for the first time since 1993 from Thursday through Saturday at the Kimmel Center.

The gap between visits is nothing mysterious: "I was very melancholic and missed my country," he says. Unlike some Europeans, he hasn't the slightest problem with tight American rehearsal schedules and loves the flexibility he has encountered in Boston and New York.

But he's had plenty of other things to do. He turned around London's artistically depressed Royal Philharmonic over 13 years from 1996 to 2009 (in a farewell concert, his Mahler was said to eclipse those of Simon Rattle and Daniel Barenboim) and hopped among most of Europe's great opera houses and orchestras with occasional residencies at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. No wonder he didn't realize until this week that his Philadelphia visit coincides with the orchestra's current search for a music director.

The wheels in his head start turning - and then stop. "It's one of the greatest orchestras in the world," he said last week backstage at the Met during an Aida intermission. "But I'm more interested in focusing on this week and making a good concert with them."

Gatti, now 47, is favorably remembered from his last Philadelphia appearance but elicited no strong reaction. That's typical for Gatti in his 30s, but not now. He's reputed to be tough and effective. As suggested by recent recordings and radio broadcasts, he has grown less conservative with daringly strong interpretive viewpoints - never predictable or falling into any one school of conducting.

"I go in a direction that audiences are sometimes surprised to hear. But if I have to repeat [what other conductors do], I will change professions," he said.

At the other end of the conducting spectrum, "I don't want to be - how do you say in English? - eccentric," he added. "I just study the score. I have an opinion and I live the music and try to deserve the composer."

Some Verdi admirers disagree about the deserving part. Although his career has been a continual ascent from the Rome, Bologna, and London orchestras (currently he heads Orchestre National de France), Gatti has been the curious target of booing. It started at December's La Scala opening night of Don Carlo, happened this summer at the Bavarian State Opera, and again recently with his Met Aida - and not necessarily at final curtain calls, but between acts. The live La Scala simulcast showed Gatti reacting to that with a private smile.

"I was prepared," he said. "I knew a few days before that it would happen. I knew that a group was coming to disturb the premiere. Well, they have their taste. They hate me. Fine. It's OK. We're musicians."

What he resents is mid-performance booing: "I'm working, and I have a right to finish in the best conditions. Then you can pass judgment. Then they have the right to applaud or disagree. I say this more for my singers than for me. The singers have to use the throat. Their nerves are connected to that. I can conduct if somebody is contesting me. But sometimes with singers, they can't produce sound. . . . "

Thanks to postings by fans at the Web site Parterre Box (http://parterre.com), the Aida controversy can be dissected. Roughly two-thirds are fiercely negative; the other third would follow him anywhere. Each side is incredulous at the other. Supporters say Gatti showed new sides of the familiar score. Detractors accuse him of stealing thunder from singers. That couldn't be the case with Carlo Guelfi, who sings Amonasro and strode into Gatti's dressing room, looking frightfully Ethiopian in full tribal costume, bantering about where to have dinner.

One clear-eyed assessment comes from James Inverne, the editor of Gramophone magazine, who heard Gatti conduct Aida in London. In an e-mail, he mentioned "amazing, plush sound" and "magical effects from the orchestra" but "at the expense of . . . its through-line." (Local opera-goers can make up their own minds at the Met's Oct. 24 Aida movie-theater simulcast.)

Relatively unshaken by the controversy, Gatti seems relatively unconcerned with his public image. Standing nearly as tall in the Met orchestra pit as Neeme Järvi, he uses baton technique more for function than for grace. His charisma comes from not a picturesque profile, but from the conviction behind what he's doing. Descending into his easy chair in the Met dressing room, he sheds a jacket, revealing only a casual black T-shirt and suspenders. It's a fair guess that he confers more feverishly with his baton maker than his tailor. Talking to the former in his dressing room, Gatti almost sounds mystical.

"I like a wood baton, not the fiberglass," he says. "The wood baton, there's some warmth and soul. It's not a cold object. It has something to pass on. . . ."

Such remarks would seem to be a window into long-cultivated instincts. His first love was composing - an activity that often gives conductors distinctive insights into the music of others. He still writes occasional concert works, such as his 1999 Divertimento for principal players in his orchestras.

Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 ("Italian"), which is on his Philadelphia program, sounded more plump and less frantic than usual four months ago with the Vienna Philharmonic. That's part of his belief in the expressive power of sound, but also reflects common sense: Much of the music is based on Italian dance, from which he takes his tempo cues.

Such sense carries over into his professional relationships. Gatti deplores the way Riccardo Muti was ousted from La Scala and is keen that such things won't happen to him. "Every time I leave an orchestra, it's not because I was invited to leave," he says. "I left in the best moment. I understand it as an arch, and when I begin the descending part, that is the moment to stop. I have very good memories with all orchestras . . . and am willing to come back soon."