La Scala: From A to "Boo!"

ENGLISH Milan

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La Scala: From A to “Boo!” ON DECEMBER 7 LA SCALA’S NEW SEASON OPENED. 16 PRODUCTIONS WILL BE STAGED THIS YEAR AND HOWEVER THEY TURN OUT , SUCCESSFUL OR LESS SO, ONE THING IS FOR CERTAIN: THE THEATER WILL ONCE AGAIN BECOME THE CENTER OF ATTENTION. MARITA GUBAREVA SHAMIL GAR AEV CORBIS/FOTOSA, ИТАРТАСС, BRIAN MORRIS, DEE CONWAY/ LEBRECHT MUSIC & ARTS/DIOMEDIA, MARY EVANS/DIOMEDIA

INTENSE DISPLAY OF EMOTIONS HAS BECOME AN INTEGRAL PART OF LA SCALA’S TRADITION: SOLOISTS ARE BOOED BY THE AUDIENCE; THE MILANESE PROTEST AGAINST CHANGES IN THE THEATER HIERARCHY; STARS AND ORDINARY EMPLOYEES DISRUPT PERFORMANCES COMPLAINING AGAINST TOUGH WORKING CONDITIONS.

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REPERTOIRE Unlike other Italian cities Milan doesn’t have many world famous sights. This could be the reason why the Milanese are so profoundly proud of their renowned theater.

The December season opening is the most talked about event of the year: who was in≈attendance, with whom, wearing what and, of course, the play itself.

At La Scala Opera traditionally enjoys the most attention. Twice as many opera productions are staged, tickets are noticeably more expensive than those for ballet, and every season must open with an opera.

The current season’s opening production was Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, the last of the series of events dedicated to the great composer. The celebrations, however, began with a scandal which overshadowed the start of last year. 2013 marked the shared 200th anniversary of the birth of two world famous geniuses: Italian Giuseppe Verdi and German Richard Wagner. La Scala’s decision to open last season not with a Verdi opera, but with Wagner’s Lohengrin caused a storm

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ENGLISH Milan

2012 SEASON OPENING: RICHARD WAGNER LOHENGRIN

of protest. “Many believe this choice was a slap in the face to Italian art and Italian national pride in a moment of crisis. Would the Germans open a Wagner year with a Verdi opera?” wrote Corriere della Sera at the time.

The theater’s management tried to justify the decision, pointing out that eight Verdi operas had been scheduled for that season against Wagner’s five. Besides, the Italian genius was born in October, a few months after the German composer – and his opera had already been chosen for the opening night of this season, in December of 2013, which was still the anniversary year.

After all, both are brilliant composers – does it really matter who is first?

Still the Milanese were outraged. The tradition to view Verdi as

THIS YEARS’S TR AVIATA IS DIRECTED BY DMITRY CHERNYAKOV

“our own” and Wagner as a foreigner dates back to the 19th century. The first premiere of Lohengrin in Milan in 1873 saw Verdi and Wagner fans clash at the entrance, while the public was so hostile that Wagner eventually decided to let the Italian take the conductor’s stand.

After last year’s Lohengrin premiere even the

2009 SEASON OPENING: GIUSEPPE VERDI LA TR AVIATA

ENGLISH Milan

T H E

M U S E U M

It is better to start your acquaintance with La Scala not with an evening performance, but with a morning visit to the museum, situated immediately inside the building in a suite of neoclassical rooms.

There isn’t a single photo or an explanatory note in the whole museum. The current exhibition’s curator, set designer Pier Luigi Pizzi, did not conceived it as a bare listing of historical facts, but as an artistic medium. The museum doesn’t give a lot of information, but guarantees an absolutely unique experience of the legend of La Scala.

Among the exhibits in the first two rooms are artifacts of 18th-century daily life: fans and cards left behind in boxes and now here on display; ceramic figurines of characters from the Commedia dell’Arte; and the so-called virginal, an antique spinet for “maidens” with the moral Latin message «Inexpert hand, touch me not!» The museum has a small room with busts and portraits of 20th-century celebrities, where two rival prima donnas Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi take center stage. However, most of the exhibition is devoted to the 19th century, the “century of Italian opera”. There are portraits of celebrated divas, like Maria Malibran, the idol of the romanticism era who tragically died at 28 after falling off a horse, or Giuditta Pasta, captured

by Brullov. The museum’s display of composers is more varied than just portraits and busts: from a plaster cast of Chopin’s hand to a spinet Verdi used to retrain hand placement after his failed entrance exams to the Milanese conservatoire which now bears his name.

Address: Largo Ghiringhelli, 1 (Piazza Scala) Tel. +39.02.88.79.74.73 Ticket price: 6 Euro www.teatroallascala.org

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President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano found himself involved in the scandal. His absence at La Scala was seen as a protest against the theater’s “germanophile” choice.

In response Napolitano issued an open letter stating that “any dispute over whose jubilee is more important – Wagner’s or Verdi’s – is nonsensical, as both are part of European cultural heritage.”

This year’s La Traviata is directed by Dmitry Chernyakov, the creator of the muchtalked-about Eugene Onegin and Ruslan and Lyudmila at the Bolshoi Theatre. In addition to La Traviata he will also stage RimskyKorsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride at La Scala this season.

Russian audiences will probably wonder at the way the Milanese theatre forms its repertoire. Unlike the repertory system used in Russia, when the same productions are rotated over many years, the Milanese theater employs a stagione system. At La Scala there is usually an opera and ballet running each month. Following the premiere a production is staged for another two to three weeks, after which it is replaced.

The list of performers at La Scala is as consistent as the playbill. Only chorus and orchestra groups are employed on a permanent basis, while star performers, namely conductors and leading singers are engaged on a production by production basis. It is seldom that anyone refuses an offer. “It all began in the 19th century, when Milan became a major financial center,” explains Gaston Fournier-Facio, the theater’s artistic coordinator. “The wealthier the city became, the more money was invested in the theater and the commissioning of famous performers. With them the prestige of the theater grew, which made it possible in turn to attract more talent.”

Mr. Fournier-Facio believes that one of the main advantages of the stagione system is that the fastidious Milanese audience is presented with something new frequently. The main disadvantage are the elevated costs: every new production sets the theater back between half to one million Euro. Naturally, La Scala is trying to rationalize expenses: some acts are staged in cooperation with other European theaters, some are sold afterwards and the most successful ones are performed again years later. However, high lease prices for storage facilities make it more sensible to destroy decorations and recreate them at a later date rather than store them for years in the hope they will be reused.

It is no surprise that at a time of crisis the theater has to curtail its repertoire. This year only ten operas will be staged instead

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of the usual 13, half of which are being repeated from previous years.

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AUDIENCE La Scala’s budget these days is comprised of government financing and sponsorships. This wasn’t always the case, however. Ever since its foundation in 1778 and until the 1920s the theater had been supported by noble Milanese families, who each owned a private box.

Even today some boxes are assigned to families such as the tyre tycoons Pirellis who in keeping with the time-honored tradition still sponsor the theater. Only now seats are not bought, but booked through the acquisition of a season ticket. The holder of an opera season ticket can see all the season’s operas once. The price of the season ticket is the same as ordinary tickets (10 plays in a season ticket cost as much as 10 separate tickets), but you are guaranteed a seat in the stalls or a box.

Yet most of the dedicated theatergoers don’t buy season tickets but prefer to see the plays from cheap seats in the gallery. La Scala has a separate side entrance for such ticket holders, which leads directly upstairs bypassing the lobby.

And while in the stalls or box seats a strict dresscode is observed, upstairs one can meet all kinds of people: students in shabby jeans, older ladies in knitted dresses or eccentric tourists in kilts. Different sections don’t mingle even during intervals: each have their own buffet.

It should be noted though that the choice of goods is the same everywhere – from common two-Euro

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coffee to “elite” champagne for 15 Euro.

The famous Milanese operaphiles gather upstairs in the gallery.

The world’s leading artists dread them, but at the same time dream of pleasing them. Notorious for their vociferous expression of delight and dissatisfaction, loggionists

ENGLISH Milan

called “Bravo!”, others felt incensed: “Shame on you!”, “Go home!”, “Poor Rossini!” were some of the exclamations. With passion worthy of true football fans, one section of spectators was trying to outshout the other until conductor Daniel Barenboim intervened and silenced the audience, declaring

Verdi’s Aida, when he heard the crowd booing him, which incidentally is the loggionists’ common means of communicating disapproval. He left the stage having shaken his fist at the audience and was replaced by a substitute. “You can’t even imagine what I felt when I heard the boos, because I was doing great and singing with heart. This is not a theater, this a gladiator arena,” said Alagna afterwards trying to justify himself.

However, the Milanese are generally skeptical about such excuses. They still remember the manner in which Luciano Pavarotti conducted himself when he was booed in 1992 while performing an aria from

that there was a concert going on and he would ask everyone to stop talking.

It must be said, the diva was not at all fazed by the situation. On the contrary, she performed the same aria afresh appealing to the corner of the gallery that had been displeased with her during the first interpretation.

Later on speaking about her impressions she exclaimed that it had been a glorious evening.

Not everyone accepts public reaction this way though. In 2006 Roberto Alagna, a young and vigorous tenor, was performing an aria from Giuseppe

Verdi’s Don Quixote. Not only did the great tenor not interrupt the play, but he subsequently apologized and thanked the audience for “justified criticism”.

LA SCALA’S CHIEF CHOREOGR APHER MAKHAR VAZIEV USED TO BE IN CHARGE IN MARIINSKY THEATRE

2013 BALLET OPENING: DEDICATION TO ALEXEI R ATMANSKY

(spectators in the gallery) unlike typical claqueurs love opera fanatically and enjoy a deep knowledge of the genre. Many know whole scores by heart and before a performance listen to records of great artists of the past so as to be able to compare.

Spectators in the gallery make a performance on the Milanese stage a real test of talent and can easily turn it into a test of character as well.

In December 2012 Cecilia Bartoli performed an aria from Rossini’s Cinderella, which was not to everyone’s liking. One section applauded and

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ARTISTS A few years ago Makhar Vaziev, who until 2008 had been in charge of the Mariinsky Theatre troupe, became La Scala’s chief choreographer. At first the public’s lively display of emotions perplexed him: “In the beginning I wondered if it is possible to treat an artist like this. And then I realized, it was right.

An audience should be alive. Showing your emotions is not rude, it is a way of assessing quality. People don’t care about your past success here. If you perform badly, you will be booed. This holds truth vice versa as well: if you do well, you’ll be praised”.

Mr. Vaziev reckons that La Scala’s system allows talent to show right away: “At a Russian repertory theatre you are able to “create” stars, perfecting their skills, gradually progressing and improving. Here you don’t have such opportunity, dancers have to learn the ropes quickly. Such a system requires exceptional

ENGLISH Milan

talent and determination.” According to Mr. Vaziev these are the qualities that mark La Scala’s new leading man, 21-year-old Claudio Coviello. Two years ago he joined the corps de ballet, and now he is already a primo ballerino (principal) dancing main parts like that in Swan Lake.

Another local feature that struck Vaziev was the high retirement age. While in Russia dancers usually retire at 38–40, here not so long ago women danced until 47 and men until 52. For only two years now, despite the trade unions initial protests – La Scala, just like the whole of Italy, is famous for its trade

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come up with an official request that “the next artistic director at La Scala be an Italian, or even better, a Milanese.”

Such demands haven’t been satisfied.

The name of the new artistic director, who will take over from Frenchman Stéphane Lissner at the end of 2014, was

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recently revealed. It will be the Austrian Alexander Pereira. Bearing in mind Milan spent two centuries under Austrian rule, it would be fair to suggest the furore surrounding the theater has little chance of fading down in the coming seasons.

If nothing else it will probably grow.

H O W T O G E T T I C K E T S T O L A S C A L A

«MARGUERITE AND ARMAND» BALLET WAS ORIGINALLY CREATED FOR RUDOLF NUREYEV AND MARGOT FONTEYN

union activities and strikes – Italian dancers irrespective of gender have been pensioned off at 45.

The one thing the Russian ballet master never managed to get used to is the local tradition whereby dancers deliberately insert an element of improvisation in every production’s last performance; some curious move, which the public doesn’t always notice, but which certainly catches the director’s eye. He did, however, manage to convince them to avoid such antics in plays with tragic finales such as La Bayadère and Giselle.

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MANAGEMENT Stéphane Lissner, the Teatro alla Scala’s general manager and artistic director, once remarked that “two things mark Italians: they think they can manage the national football side and put together a playbill for La Scala.” The Milanese don’t just try to influence the choice of plays and performers, but have strong opinions regarding the theater’s management as well.

They are particularly concerned by the recent trend to appoint foreigners to managing positions. At the moment La Scala’s artistic director is a Frenchman, the choreographer is Russian, the artistic coordinator is from Costa Rica, the chief conductor and musical director is Israeli. The theater says it is trying to assemble the best specialists, who aren’t necessarily Italian. However, these politics infuriate many Milanese, who aren’t ready to hand over what they have traditionally considered their “national heritage” to foreigners. Members of the Conservative Party “Northern League” have even

In order to see a play at La Scala, it is important to familiarize yourself with the ticketing system.

First option: purchase tickets via the Internet or phone.

Tickets are sold as early as two months in advance and if you are fast enough you might get reasonably priced ones (for the opera tickets range from 24 to 210 Euro, for the ballet from 17 to 127 Euro, and for a symphony concert from 12 to 73 Euro).

A month before the premiere tickets go on sale at the central box office at the underground crossing of Duomo subway station (by the exit to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II). Tickets are sold until 6.00 p.m. on the day of the performance. An hour before the performance starts the evening box office opens and the remaining tickets can be purchased here with a 25% discount.

On the day of the play gallery entrance tickets are sold at 13 Euro.

This option saves you money, but not time: in order to buy a ticket you have to stand in the morning queue at the evening box office and get on the 1.00 p.m. list, and then check in three hours before the start of the play (a roll call usually takes place at 5.00 p.m.). The queue’s length is directly proportional to the merit of the play. When there is a star performer involved, on stage or behind a conductor’s stand, theatre lovers start queuing at 4.00 a.m. If it is an ordinary play, the queue is relatively short.

The same goes for scalpers. The higher the play’s popularity, the likelier you are to come across them. They say that since the 1990s most are Russian, so there shouldn’t be any communication problems, but the overcharging can be quite significant. Lately a new type of speculation has surfaced involving the Web. If you search for “tickets to La Scala” on the Internet, you are very likely to find yourself not at the theater’s official page, but on some scalper’s website, where the cheapest tickets could cost you hundreds of Euro. There is only one valid site: www.teatroallascala.org/en/ Tickets for a season opening (December 7) range from 120 to 2400 Euro and are very hard come by.

Season tickets. If you look closely at the theater playbill, you’ll see that behind every play there is a mark denoting the corresponding season ticket (the so-called turno A, B, C, D, E, F). These tickets differ neither in price nor in cast. But traditionally season tickets for turno A plays are considered more prestigious.

First of all, they are first nights. And secondly, these tickets were the first to be introduced and among their “subscribers” are members of famous Milanese families. It is difficult to become part of this “clan” since happy ticket A holders usually renew their subscription year after year (even though it is 20% more expensive than buying a new one). There is nothing else to do but get on a waiting list. Until recently turno D subscription was also as prestigious: in the 1990s it was distributed among firm executives and sponsor corporations. Among recent introductions is the UNDER30 subscription (turno G and H) for those between 6 and 30 years of age: it offers special opportunities and discounts for specified plays. Finally, there are “no subscription” performances, which naturally attract a lot of tourists.