It is 133 days since La Scala went dark. Tonight, its doors will open once again, for a limited number of spectators – 600 instead of 2,000 – for a short series of concerts.
Positioning in the auditorium has been arranged with single or paired seats, with a top price of €48 and gallery seats at €24. To respect social distancing requirements, it means that a 13-seat row has between two and four people in it as there must be spaces behind and in front as well as to the sides. Boxes will hold a maximum of two people and are mainly arranged by alternating one person boxes with those for two – usually, there are between four and six people in each box. Paired seats are obviously meant for people from the same household. Even if a concert is sold out it is hardly going to fill the coffers, so it an inspiring gesture, but it's not a solution.
Singers include Francesco Meli, Luca Salsi, Federica Lombardi, and Irina Lungu with instrumental players including Beatrice Rana, Mischa Maisky and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, young singers from the theatre's academy and members of the orchestra.
Tickets are available exclusively online. The four concerts are as follows:
Monday 6 July 2020 at 8pm
Luca Salsi, baritone
Beatrice Rana, piano
Mischa Maisky, violoncello
Wednesday 8 July 2020 at 8pm
Federica Lombardi, soprano
Francesco Meli, tenor
Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin
Giulio Zappa, piano
Monday 13 July 2020 at 8pm
New Voices at La Scala: Former Academy students and winners of Italian singing competitions
Irina Lungu, soprano
Federica Guida, soprano
Caterina Sala, soprano
Szilvia Vörös, mezzosoprano
Raffaele Abete, tenor
Fabio Capitanucci, baritone
Jongmin Park, bass
Michele Gamba, piano
Wednesday 15 July 2020 at 8pm
La Scala Chamber Music:
Instrumentalists from La Scala's Filarmonica orchestra
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.
