Let's just continue where I left you two days ago: It goes without saying that I would never miss a chance to see Riccardo Muti conduct. Muti's home town is Naples and for a few years now he has been working on the resurrection of Neapolitan operas of the 17th and 18th centuries with his Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. The production of Saverio Mercadante's I due figaro that I saw at the Teatro Colon on Thursday had originated at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival last and had also been presented at the Ravenna Festival and at the Teatro Real in Madrid. It is a charming comedy, a sequel to Mozavrt's Nozze di Figaro. Count and Countness Almaviva have a daughter now who is in love with grown-up Cherubino. Susanna and Figaro play the matchmakers, there is a lot of confusion, an angry Count (what else) and a happy ending, all highly entertaining, beautiful music, extremely difficult to sing and splendidly performed by Muti, his orchestra and a fantastic cast of young, mostly Italian singers, none of them older than 30. I had such a good time that I will go again tonight.

My old friend and Salzburg mentor Evamaria Wieser is here as well. Of course, Evamaria taught me everything about being an artistic administrator and we are a wonderful team in audition, so yesterday we took a taxi to La Plata, about 50km from Buenos Aires, to spend the day with a group of young Argentinian singers at the Teatro Argentino, arguably the most interesting opera company in Argentina. The theatre had selected a very good group of young artists, we heard a few exceptional voices, engaged in interesting discussions and were treated with the utmost hospitality. On my next trip to Argentina I will definitely go to La Plata again.

We spent so much time in La Plata that I barely made it back to yet another evening at the Teatro Colon for a concert of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra. What a privilege to spend three evenings in a row at this wonderful venue for a recital, an opera and a concert of Mahler's 7th Symphony. The acoustics worked splendidly for each of them.