Benjamin Britten's masterpiece Turn of the Screw opens tonight at La Scala and runs until 17 October.
It will be the first time that the opera has been sung in English at the theatre as it's only other appearance, at the end of the ‘60s, was in Virginio Puecher's production which was in Italian.
The new production marks the debut in Milan of Danish director Kasper Holten, since 2011 the Director of Opera for The Royal Opera in London, and Christoph Eschenbach will conduct.
Ian Bostridge, who is well known at La Scala for his recitals, will be singing his first opera role on the stage in a part for which he been acclaimed, especially for the Deborah Warner's award-winning production for The Royal Opera and the 2002 recording with Daniel Harding where Gramophone Magazine called his interpretation ‘ethereal, other-worldly, eerily magnetic'.
Swedish soprano Miah Persson returns to play the Governess after her success at the theatre in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea di Monteverdi
Mrs Grose is Jennifer Johnston and Miss Jessel is sung by Allison Cook. Miles is played alternately by two boys from the Trinity Boys Choir – Sebastian Exall and Lucas Pinto – and Louise Moseley repeats the role of Flora that she played two years ago at Glyndebourne where she, and her Miles, ‘dominated' the scene.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
Let us hope he does a better job for La Scala than he and those under his watch have done at Covent Garden have done .