Opera and Milan: a love story
In 1776, Milan was under Austrian rule. A fire destroyed the court theater; it was impossible for Milan to remain without opera, such was the Milanese love of the spectacle. Empress Maria Theresa quickly ordered the reconstruction of a new theater. It was built on the remains of an earlier church dedicated to St. Regina della Scala, hence the curious name Scala, meaning "ladder" in French. Inaugurated in 1778, it was Rossini who made La Scala the sacred setting of Italian melodrama in the early 19th century, with his operas featuring formidable musical sequences. Stendhal, a great connoisseur of the genre, was a regular at the Scala, and has left us some very fine lines on its social evenings: "It rains, it snows, outside the Scala, what does it matter? All good company is gathered in the one hundred and eighty boxes of this theater ". Later, La Scala became a symbol of national unity when, in 1842, Verdi staged his Nabucco there; the Milanese took the chorus of Israelites trapped in the terrible Nabucco as a kind of patriotic anthem against the Austrians. In 1943, in a city devastated by bombing, La Scala was one of the first buildings to be rebuilt. More recently, after a year and a half's closure due to the pandemic, once again it was through the music of their opera house that the people of Milan found new hope. The reopening of the theater to the public with a concert in autumn 2021 has, in fact, marked a new lease of life for La Scala and strengthened the bond it has maintained with the Milanese public for almost three centuries.
A cultural product of impeccable quality
Like fashion and design, opera in Milan has to be perfect. Whether concerts, ballets or operas, every performance at La Scala is of a quality rarely seen elsewhere. Conductors, performers and musicians, as well as craftsmen, decorators, set designers and costume designers, La Scala lacks nothing to make itself seductive.
All of Italy's great composers have performed here, and the most important international composers have had one or more of their works performed here. Likewise, all the great singers of the 19th and 20th centuries have jostled to perform here. Let's not forget the fabulous evenings during which Maria Callas (1950s and 1960s), or Luciano Pavarotti (1980s), with their unrivalled vocals, moved crowds to tears and won the loyalty of an already loyal audience. It was at La Scala, during a performance of Bellini's Pirate, that Callas inveighed against the then director Ghiringhelli, who had offended her, in a fitting aria. But it was also from this very stage that the singer greeted the great conductor Arturo Toscanini, who was present in the auditorium.
Directors Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli illuminated the stage with their elegant and sophisticated stagings. Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti and current conductor Riccardo Chailly held the reins of musical direction with empathy and authority. And let's not forget the ballet, present at La Scala since the very beginning. The greatest performers of all time have appeared here: local star Carla Fracci, the incomparable Rudolf Nureyev and, last but not least, Roberto Bolle, "the Leonardo Di Caprio of ballet". Among the Frenchmen who have made their mark at La Scala is Stéphane Lissner, who in 2005 became the first non-Italian to become Superintendent. Since 2020, another Frenchman has been at the helm: Dominique Meyer, whose leadership of the theater during the covid crisis was particularly applauded for its "computerization".
La Scala in Milan, a question of society
Every year on December 7, the day of Saint Ambrose, Milan's patron saint, the opening of La Scala's season is a celebration. The event has become almost more worldly than musical, with a parade of political and film personalities. La Scala's opening show also sometimes becomes a platform, as on December 7, 2023, when a journalist shouted " Viva l'Italia antifascista! " (Long live antifascist Italy!), just before the show began. As tradition would have it, unknown music lovers nestled in the henhouse also applaud or whistle the performance every year, thus signing its fate for the entire season.
There was a time, not so long ago, when La Scala was reserved for Italian society covered in diamonds or mink, and getting a seat was a real tour de force for those who weren't part of the happy few. Things are slightly different today. Of course, opera is still an expensive business, but the latest directors of La Scala have embarked on a policy of lowering the price of shows, with the aim of making the theater accessible to music lovers who had shied away from it for lack of means. The calendar has also been enriched with around a hundred performances a year, and the repertoire offers a choice that varies between better-known "repertory" works and more cutting-edge ones, selected from lesser-known, older or more modern authors. There are also special rates for families and under-18s, and prices vary according to different degrees of visibility. If you're in Milan on December 7, you'll also be able to watch La Scala's season-opening show in several of the city's theaters, which will broadcast it free of charge on giant screens. The latest wish of the current director, Dominique Meyer, is to export the calendar of performances "outside the walls", to take La Scala with its artists and its Milanese spirit all over the world.
