World War II bombing by allied forces destroyed much of La Scala. It was rebuilt in three years and reopened with Toscanini conducting on 11 May 1946.
Graham Spicer sees Harald Lander’s Études, Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort, and Gioacchino Starace in Maurice Béjart’s Boléro at La Scala.
La Scala’s Opera Season 2025-2026 opens with Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Turandot to celebrate the centenary of the premiere La Scala.
Elisabetta Riva will be the new Superintendent of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, with effect from 23 April 2025.
Walter Venditti, a well-loved figure in Italy’s ballet world, died yesterday morning. He was 95. Here are photos and tributes.
Full details – cast, creative team, conductor – of the 14 operas in La Scala’s 2024-2025 opera season, which opens with La forza del destino.
The premiere of Don Carlo at La Scala saw two curtain announcements, some boos, protests at the presence of some politicians, and lots of applause.
From 1 November to 31 December 2023, Milan will dedicate a programme of events for Callas 100, to mark the centenary of Maria Callas’ birth on 2 December.
The 2023-2024 Opera Season of the Teatro alla Scala will present 14 productions, 10 of which are new, with a predominantly Italian repertoire.
Franco Zeffirelli was born in 1923. La Scala anticipates the celebration of his centenary with the exhibition “Franco Zeffirelli – The La Scala Years”.
On the day that La Scala opened its doors for its season opener, Macbeth, the Prada Foundation in Milan welcomed Riccardo Muti for a series of masterclasses.
Francesco Meli is accompanied by the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino conducted by Marco Armiliato for Prima Verdi – “a journey through ‘my’ Verdi”.
Dominique Meyer talks about the use of the European Green Pass, taking the theatre to the suburbs, dress code, and creating a chamber theatre.
Tributes pour in for Carla Fracci, television schedules are revised, newspapers and magazines give her the cover, but the most touching tribute of all? A tram.
Riccardo vs Riccardo. At the end of last night’s concert, Muti told his successor to get lost, though with more colourful language.
Yesterday La Scala reopened its doors to the public with a concert, available from today: the 75th anniversary of Toscanini’s reopening concert.
Q&A When did you start singing? When I was 6, in the chorus of my hometown in the Valle d’Aosta. A lady in my parish, Rita, invited me to sing and I was so happy… I looked forward to the rehearsals! When I was 16 I began to study at the conservatoire, and after that…
Fifty years ago today, on 3 October 1968, Tullio Serafin died in Rome. In a long career he conducted singers from Caruso to Pavarotti. He was born near Venice in 1878, but when he was 11 the family moved to Milan where he eventually played viola at La Scala under the baton of Arturo Toscanini,…
Frances Alda (1879 – 1952) was a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised operatic soprano. She was one of the world’s most celebrated singers during the first three decades of the 20th century and was a frequent onstage partner with Enrico Caruso at the Metropolitan Opera. This account below, taken from her fascinating 1937 autobiography Men, Women, & Tenors, describes…
La Scala remembers the great conductor Victor de Sabata with an exhibition in the theatre foyer (which opens tomorrow, Sunday 12 November) and Riccardo Chailly has chosen to dedicate Andrea Chénier to his memory, which is the opera which opens the theatre’s season on 7 December. De Sabata first arrived at La Scala in the…
Seventy years ago, on 16 June 1947, virtuoso violinist Bronislaw Huberman died at 64. He founded the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra by bringing Jewish musicians from Nazi Europe to Palestine, giving refuge to 1,000 musicians and their families.
Arturo Toscanini is the epitome of what a conductor should be according to the mass imagination. Like Caruso and Callas, his fame went beyond the concert halls, past the record-buyers and radio listeners, and reached into the minds of those who had never heard him perform. His sometimes-fiery temperament and energetic conducting style supported the…
The opening of La Scala‘s season on 7 December each year is the most anticipated and often contested event in the international opera calendar. Daniel Barenboim opens the 2014-2015 Opera and Ballet Season with Fidelio directed by Deborah Warner. It marks the end of his nine years at the Teatro alla Scala at its musical helm, even…
Theatrical to the last, the great soprano Magda Olivero died on the day of La Scala‘s opening performance after the summer break. Before Maria Agresta‘s recital a beautifully worded tribute to Olivero’s career, voice and life was read out, and then the audience stood for a minute’s silence. It was followed by long applause. Although Olivero…
The Wikipedia entry on Italian painter and designer Alessandro Sanquirico reads: Alessandro Sanquirico (Milan, July 27, 1777 – Milan, March 12, 1849) was an Italian scenic designer, architect, and painter. He provided the decorations for the celebration of the crowning of Ferdinando I of Austria, as king of Lombardy and the Veneto. He designed the architectural…
The Amici della Scala (Friends of La Scala) was formed in 1978 to promote music, art and culture in Milan and the Lombardy region, though the La Scala opera house is the focus of their activities. Activities of the Amici della Scala include scholarships for young talents; gifts of musical instruments to young soloists; lectures, conferences, television…
On the eve of Juan Diego Florez’s Albert Hall concert, The Sunday Times sent a journalist to his home in Pesaro. This beautiful town on Italy’s east coast – home to the Rossini Opera Festival, and where Pavarotti had his much-filmed villa – is where Florez has made his base with his wife and baby although, inevitably,…
Last night in the glamorous foyer of the La Scala Theatre (Ridotto dei Palchi ‘Arturo Toscanini’) the Amici della Scala awarded an Honorary Membership of the society to Italian theatre designer Luisa Spinatelli. She is one of several Italian designers who, outside of ‘la moda’, continue to make their mark in theatre and cinema. Spinatelli has…
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