In August 1943, Milan was bombed by Allied planes. On the night between 15 and 16 August the city centre and the Teatro alla Scala were seriously damaged.
A photographic exhibition, La Scala Reborn – The Reconstruction of the Theatre, the City, the Country, opens today, 80 years to the day after the theatre reopened in 1946 with a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The exhibition can be seen in the grand foyer named after Toscanini, who was twice the music director of La Scala. A video accompanies the exhibition curated by Paola Calvetti, featuring voices from the archives (including that of Renata Tebaldi, who sang in the reopening concert) and recollections from today, including those of the director and designer Pier Luigi Pizzi.
The reconstruction of Teatro alla Scala was urgent because of the symbolic value of returning the theatre to the city – a symbol of rebirth. The theatre was immediately rebuilt, and three years after the bombing it reopened.
Toscanini was a vocal critic of Mussolini’s regime, refused to conduct in Italy, and left for the United States in 1931, selling his house in Milan to support his family. He returned from America to conduct the opening concert on 11 May 1946, and a few weeks later, on 2 June, Italy became a Republic.
After the reopening, there were 10 concerts over the following six weeks, which were also relayed via loudspeakers in Piazza Duomo and broadcast worldwide on the radio. The concerts were truly universal, with an evening entirely dedicated to Italian composers, followed by a repertoire of Russian and American composers, in homage to the Allied countries, as well as works from the French and German symphonic repertoire. The journey culminated on 24 June with the final programme – Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
At midday today, Riccardo Chailly conducted a concert in the presence of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, which featured excerpts from Verdi’s opera Nabucco. La Scala is presenting the opera as Nabucodonosor (Nebuchadnezzar) for a new production, which opens on 16 May. This was the opera’s original title when it received its world premiere at La Scala on 9 March 1842. This production also features the first modern stage performance of the divertissement written by Verdi for the opera’s staging in Brussels. Today, La Scala’s orchestra was joined by the chorus and the singers Michele Pertusi and Francesco Meli.
During the concert, a short film about the reconstruction work was screened, and Toscanini’s voice was once again heard in the auditorium.
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 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.
Nice of you to spread the blame under the umbrella term “Allied planes”. Alas, the August 1943 missions were entirely down to the RAF flying from their bases in England. O dear…
I was present yesterday, and yes, the photos are all labelled with ‘Allied’ and not ‘British’, but my friend immediately said ‘your bombs’. It was a miracle that The Last Supper was saved, covered by bags of sand. Other walls came down.
A few corrections. Toscanini became an exile in the United States in October 1939 for the duration of the war. He continued to live in Milan throughout the 1930s. He never sold his house at 20 Via Durini to go to live in America. He still owned the house when he died and it remained in the Toscanini family until 1986.