The theatre La Scala : History and myth |
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Collection title
Magazzini Einstein
First broadcast date
02/19/2009
Abstract
Discovering the history and legendary myths of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The documentary evokes its great musicians and the relationship between Giuseppe Verdi and La Scala, relationship plenty of events and conflicts, reconstructed through the story of major players : the conductor Giulini, the soprano Leyla Gencer, the historian Lorenzo Arruga.
Images of the bombing of the theater during the Second World War and its reconstruction. Archive footage and photographs of the lyric sopranos Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi and of the conductors Herbert Von Karajan, Victor De Sabata and Arturo Toscanini.
Broadcaster
RAI - RAI Tre
Audiovisual form
Magazine
Primary theme
Music and songs
Credits / Cast
- Gencer Leyla - Participant
- Giulini Carlo Maria - Participant
- Arruga Lorenzo - Participant
Map locations
- Italy - Eastern North - Milan
Original language
Italian
Additional information
B/W archive footage and photos representing the bombing of the theater during WWII and some great artists who performed at the theater alla Scala.
Context
La Scala Opera House: history and myth
Stéphane Mourlane
La Scala is one of the most famous opera houses in the world. The 3,600-seat theatre was designed by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini at the request of Maria Theresa of Austria, heir to the Hapsburg Empire, which at that time included Lombardy. Built in 1778, it is named after Regina della Scala, wife of Duke Barnabo Visconti and founder, in the fourteenth century, of the church on whose site the opera house is built. In the eighteenth century, La Scala had to compete with other major Italian theatres in Naples, Venice and Rome. Many famous composers of the time, however, offered their works to La Scala: Mozart presented Lucio Silla there, for example.
It was the nineteenth century that La Scala established its reputation, just as Italian opera was beginning to come into its own with works by Rossini, Donzetti, Bellini and especially Verdi. From 1830, the composer from Roncole put on several operas there, including Nabucco in 1842. Although after 1845 his success took him elsewhere, his work has helped establish La Scala’s international reputation as Italy’s greatest opera house. Verdi did not however abandon Milan, coming back to create Falstaff there in 1893.
In the early twentieth century, Giacomo Puccini took his place and made La Scala forever associated with his work. It is true that after his first opera, Edgar in 1889, the composer from Lucca moved away from Milan to put on Manon L’Escaut (1893) and La Bohème (1896) in Turin and Tosca in Rome (1898), but the premiere of Madame Butterfly was in Milan in 1904. The works of Verdi and Puccini received particular care under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, principal conductor at La Scala since 1899. According to the musicians who worked with him, his great talent was matched only by his perfectionism and his anger, but that same talent built La Scala’s reputation, which he opened to foreign composers such as Richard Wagner.
Opposed to Mussolini’s policy to make Rome the centre of everything, including opera, Toscanini left for the United States in 1929. In 1943 La Scala was bombed by the Allies and Toscanini only returned to Milan in 1946 for the opening night after the theatre had been completely renovated.
In the 1950s, great Italian conductors like Carlo Maria Giulini and foreign ones like Herbert Von Karajan conducted operas staged by well-known film directors like Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli. Maria Callas, a Greek prima donna naturalized American but living in Italy where she had married, had some of her greatest triumphs at La Scala. The Milanese public discovered the soprano’s extraordinary voice in December 1951 when she made her debut there in Verdi's Vespri Siciliani. In 1955, her performance of La Traviata completely overwhelmed a public reputed to be so difficult.
Subsequently, other conductors such as Claudio Abbado in 1972 and Riccardo Muti in 1986 kept La Scala at the summit of the opera firmament. With a programme increasingly open to works from other countries, La Scala is still a theatre where singers and directors can make or break their reputation.
Bibliography:
Barigazzi Giuseppe La Scala racconta, Milano, Hoepli, 2010, 650 p.
Brigman Nanie, Italian music, Paris, PUF, 1973, 127 p.
Pierre Milza, Verdi and his time in Paris, Perrin, 2004, 559 p.
Paolo Prato, La musica italiana. Una storia social dall'unità has oggi, Rome, Donzelli, 2010, 543 p.
http://www.teatroallascala.org
