Milan gardens named in honour of Eufemia Brancato – Queen of the tutu
Today, a garden in Milan was named after a costume maker, a woman known affectionately as the “Queen of the tutu” – Eufemia Brancato.
Piccolo Teatro
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La Scala’s 2026-2027 Ballet Season announced
La Scala announces its 2026-2027 Ballet Season with nine works, including five premieres and four new productions.
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Director and designer Robert ‘Bob’ Wilson dies at 83
Robert ‘Bob’ Wilson, one of the most important innovators of the contemporary theatre scene, has died – he was 83 years old.
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books | dance | music & opera
Books: Amici della Scala celebrates Italy’s theatre designers – Luciano Damiani, Anna Anni, Gabriella Pescucci, Franca Squarciapino, Luisa Spinatelli
Amici della Scala has published an annual collection of books on La Scala’s designers for more than 20 years. The new collection features Luciano Damiani and others.
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Maria Callas at 100 – Milan mounts 2 months of events to celebrate
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.
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news | dance | music & opera | obituaries
Ezio Frigerio, the great theatre designer, dies at 91
Ezio Frigerio has died at the age of 91. He made theatre history designing sets for Strehler, Nureyev, De Filippo, and De Sica.
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Italian singer Milva has died at 81 – a career from pop to Berio
Milva, the Italian singer who interpreted Brecht, Piazzolla, chanson, Italian pop songs, and Berio has died at 81. She had been ill for several years.
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Riccardo Chailly and Irina Brook bring Brecht and Weill back to La Scala
On March 18 at 8 pm CET, Riccardo Chailly conducts Die sieben Tosdsünden (“The Seven Deadly Sins”) and Mahagonny Songspiel in a live-streamed performance from La Scala.
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Two beautiful volumes from Amici della Scala: 80 years of costumes at La Scala and the designer Coltellacci
Vittoria Crespi Morbio, the writer of an exceptional collection of books produced by the Amici della Scala, has written monographs on important artists who have collaborated with Teatro alla Scala – some celebrated, some largely forgotten. These little gems are precious in the content but lacking in their scale. However, luckily, the Friends of La…
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Ferruccio Soleri – After 60 years and 2,283 performances, Italy’s Arlecchino bows out
On 13 May, a very important actor took his final bow. Goldoni’s Harlequin, servant to two masters, known in Italy as simply Arlecchino, has seen Ferruccio Soleri in the leading role since 1959. Now, aged 88, he has taken off his chequered costume and black leather commedia dell’arte mask for the last time. Goldoni’s play…
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Love Hurts – creating a new opera. Nicola Moro and Lisa Hilton’s take on De Sade and Gilles de Rais
On Saturday 25 June in Milan a new opera will get its world premiere at Milan’s prestigious Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato. Love Hurts is written by Italian composer Nicola Moro with a libretto by Lisa Hilton and will be conducted by James Ross. The opera is a project of contemporary opera targeted at young opera singers,…
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Luca Ronconi, Italian director of theatre and opera, dies at 81
Italian director Luca Ronconi died yesterday evening in the Policlinico in Milan after a short illness. His health had been poor over the last years, he was on dialysis, and was complicated by pneumonia. He was 81. His collaboration with La Scala lasted for over thirty years and today the flag outside the theatre is…
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Rothko in Rome: an interview with Carolyn Carlson
“It’s very difficult to tour now in Italy with its money problems,” Carolyn Carlson tells me, which makes producer Daniele Cipriani a brave man indeed: he is bringing her new piece Dialogue with Rothko to Rome, with workshops to follow. Why Mark Rothko? It started as a commission to do a short haiku or prose on a painter…
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Milan celebrates one of its most-loved actresses as she turns 80
Giulia Lazzarini, one of Giorgio Strehler‘s favourite actress, and for decades a constant presence on the stage of Milan‘s famed Piccolo Teatro, is 80 and, rightly, it was at the Piccolo Teatro that her birthday was celebrated this week. Looking ten-years younger, she is continuing to work on stage, and will play the mother in…
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Valentina Cortese becomes a Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Italian actress Valentina Cortese was awarded France’s highest honour in recognition of her contribution to the arts, the Commandeur dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, during a ceremony on Monday. The award ceremony took place in Milan‘s French Institute, and was preceded by the projection of photographs and film clips by by Antonio Zanoletti,…
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Actress Valentina Cortese radiant in haute couture at 90
Great Italian actress Valentina Cortese turned 90 this year. Style has always been part of her life (she is the sort of actress who is theatrical offstage as well as on) and the diva quality in her manner and dress belongs to the glamorous era of Taylor and Burton, and the jet-set. But Cortese is…
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Aterballetto’s Romeo and Juliet in Milan: contemporary dance at its highest level
Romeo and Juliet by Italian choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti was created for his company Aterballetto in 2006, and has received international acclaim ever since. But what a strange bird it is. Exotic and sensual, yes, beautiful to behold, certainly, but the storytelling is vague and, even for a viewer who knows traditional versions of Prokofiev’s ballet…
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Aterballetto embarks on a mini dance festival at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro
Aterballetto and its choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti come to Milan‘s Piccolo Teatro for more than 2 weeks with a mini Festival of their repertory. Kicking off will be the Romeo and Juliet on May 17. It was created in 2006 and had a success in Milan the first time around at the Teatro Arcimboldi. Never has a story…
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Marie-Agnès Gillot in Milan for Pippo Delbono’s “After The Battle”
This is how The New York Times introduced Delbono to its readership in an interview last year: Part theater, part dance, part carnival, part music, the works of Pippo Delbono are hard to categorize; they leave viewers alternately elated, drained, shocked and thoughtful. His company, with which he has performed all his works since the…
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Ornella Vanoni wows the Milanese audience at the MITO Festival
“Le canzoni della Mala” are songs about the Milanese underworld, most of which originated in the 50s when the great Italian theatre director Giorgio Strehler realised that Milan lacked a tradition of songs about prostitutes and thieves. In order to give his adopted home a body of such songs, as his beloved Brecht had given Berlin,…
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