A smartphone strikes a first-row spectator at La Scala
Sunday evening during the opening night of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail at La Scala, a mobile phone fell from the third or fourth tier hitting a front-row spectator in the stalls on the cheek. He yelled, “I’ll report you!”.
When an usher went to retrieve the phone at the interval, he said that he would only give it to the owner so that he could identify them.
La Scala’s doctor, during the interval between the second and third act, found that the man was bruised but not seriously injured. The owner of the phone was a German tourist, the phone was switched off, and her remorse managed to avoid the lawsuit that the man had threatened.
The announcement that ‘no photography or recording is permitted during the performance’ is played (if it is played) with the house lights up, so the tourists that it is mainly aimed at are too happily chatting (or taking selfies) to listen. Now, it is said the announcement could be postponed until the auditorium is in darkness.
In a way, the theatre has encouraged the use of smartphones as librettos in various languages can be read from its website.
The music historian Francesco Gala, who was in the auditorium on Sunday, said on Facebook that he remembers a ballet matinee, decades ago, when students in the boxes were happily spitting on the head of a man in the stalls.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
