INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMESI | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2013. . . .

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2013 | IIINTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES. . . .

RECITALS

SINGING, PURE AND SIMPLE

Center stage: La Scalawas produced bythe Creative Solutions department and didnot involve the newspaper’s reporting oreditorial departments. Text by CLAUDIAFLISI.

When the curtain rises at Teatro alla Scalaon Dec. 7, the opening night audience willfeel reassured. They will see an elegantParisian salon, what one would expect in atraditional production of one of Verdi’s mostbeloved operas, ‘‘La Traviata.’’

But there are surprises in store. Thisbrand-new production will be not quite whatthe audience expects, and that is exactly asStéphane Lissner, general manager of LaScala, would have it. ‘‘My idea of a publictheater is not to see and be seen in niceclothes and sip Champagne between acts,but to make people think,’’ he says. ‘‘Ourmission should not be primarily to charmand delight an audience but to make thepublic reflect and think. Thinking can also bedelightful, no?’’

One assuredly delightful aspect of theproduction will be the singing. Diana Damrauhas the role of Violetta, and Lissner calls theGerman soprano the definitive Violetta ofour time. He booked her for the part fouryears ago, before he had a director or con-ductor. Alfredo is played by Polish-born PiotrBeczala, and Zeljko Lucic, a Serbian bari-tone, sings the role of Giorgio.

The link to Verdi’s Italian heritage is as-sured by the conductor, Daniele Gatti, who is

from Milan. The psychology that drives theproduction comes from its Russian director,Dmitri Tcherniakov. He is young (43), seri-ous, daring and introspective. Having begunhis career as an orchestral violinist, he has aspecial understanding of opera music.According to Lissner, Tcherniakov is ‘‘one ofthe three greatest directors working in thetheater today.’’

The Russian will have another opportu-nity to stimulate the Scala’s audiences inthe coming season. He worked with DanielBarenboim, the house’s musical director,on ‘‘The Czar’s Bride,’’ an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov rarely seen outside of Russia.The strikingly modern co-production withthe Berlin Staatsoper (where Barenboimalso serves as musical director), with thesecret police in business suits and the useof projected graphics, was highly appreci-ated by the audience at its debut in Berlin. Itopens at La Scala in March 2014.

Barenboim will conduct two other operasin the coming season, his last at La Scala.One is a new production of Mozart’s ‘‘Cosìfan Tutte,’’ considered a classic of Italian op-era. Rolando Villazón will play Ferrando inthe production.

Rossini’s ‘‘Le Comte Ory’’ is anotheropera that is not often seen. A new co-production with the Opéra National de Lyon,

directed by Laurent Pelly with Juan DiegoFlórez in the title role, it will debut in July.

An unusual, mixed program is on theschedule for January and February, with twoballets — ‘‘Le Spectre de la Rose’’ with cho-reography by Michail Fokin and ‘‘La RoseMalade’’ by Roland Petit — and a one-actopera, ‘‘Cavalleria Rusticana,’’ conducted byDaniel Harding.

French opera will take the spotlight inApril with a major production of grand operaand a masterpiece of the French repertory,‘‘Les Troyens,’’ by Berlioz. In the golfomistico, the pit, will be Anthony Pappano,one of the leading conductors of our timeand the music director of the Royal Opera inLondon. English-born of Italian parents, hehas conducted concerts at La Scala, butnever an opera.

Expectations are high for anothermassive show (a co-production with six dif-ferent opera houses involved): RichardStrauss’s ‘‘Elektra.’’ It is important in partbecause 2014 marks the 150th birthday ofStrauss.

There is a second, more contemporaryreason: ‘‘Elektra’’ debuted at Aix-en-Provencethis past summer under the direction ofPatrice Chéreau, who died in October at theage of 68. The French theatrical and film di-rector, an Oscar winner in the latter category,is consistently named among the top direc-tors of theater and opera worldwide. Chéreauhas often worked to acclaim with Lissner andBarenboim, notably for the 1992 ‘‘Wozzeck’’by Alban Berg at the Staatsoper, Mozart’s‘‘Don Giovanni’’ at the Salzburg Festival in1994 and the ‘‘Tristan und Isolde’’ by RichardWagner that opened at the Scala in 2007.

Other offerings are the always-popular‘‘Lucia di Lamermoor,’’ a co-production withthe Metropolitan Opera of New York, and ‘‘IlTrovatore,’’ both opening in February.

The final opera of the 2013-14 season isanother Verdian staple, ‘‘Simon Boc-canegra.’’ For five of its nine performances,it will be conducted by Barenboim and starPlácido Domingo in the title role.

The first opera of the 2014-15 seasonwill be Barenboim’s swan song at La Scala.‘‘Fidelio,’’ Beethoven’s only opera, will be di-rected by Deborah Warner, an English-woman who has already enjoyed great suc-cess with Milanese audiences with asensitive 2011 production of Britten’s‘‘Death in Venice.’’n

2013-14

A SEASON OF THOUGHTFUL DELIGHTS

Change is inevitable, even to as vener-able an institution as Teatro alla Scala.Over its 235-year history, La Scala has re-structured its interiors, expanded its prop-erty holdings, created a school for the per-forming arts and started a museum. Thisyear, the ballet school celebrates its 200thbirthday and the museum marks 100 yearsof operation.

Next year will bring more change than

usual. The current managing director of LaScala, Stéphane Lissner, will leave Milan tohead the Paris Opera on Sept. 1, 2014. Themusical director, Daniel Barenboim, willresign at the end of 2014, after havingconducted the opening opera of La Scala’s2014-15 season.

Because opera programming happensyears in advance, the new managing direc-tor has been named. He is Alexander

Pereira, born in Vienna but no stranger toItaly: he worked for Olivetti for 12 years.Pereira began his professional music man-agement career in 1984 and worked for 20years as director of the Zurich Opera House.He will come to Milan from Salzburg, wherehe was most recently director of theSalzburg Festival.

Lissner will leave Pereira with 80 percentof the following season’s schedule already

For music lovers in general — and operafans in particular — a visit to La Scala is notcomplete without stopping at the MuseoTeatrale alla Scala, the museum housed in abuilding adjacent to the theater. The mu-seum is celebrating its 100th birthday at thesame address, though there have beenmany changes since it first opened onMarch 8, 1913.

‘‘The original idea was to create apinacoteca, a gallery where La Scala pat-rons could go to browse interesting objectsduring the intermissions of the opera,’’ ex-plains Matteo Sartorio, curator for the mu-seum and its affiliated Livia Simoni Library.

The idea had been discussed for a de-cade at the beginning of the 20th centurywhen an auction in Paris became a catalystfor action. The estate of Giulio Sambon, aNeapolitan antiquarian, was to be sold in1911. It consisted of many items related totheater, not just opera, and attracted the at-tention of the Milanese and also of J.P. Mor-gan, acting for the Metropolitan Museum ofNew York.

Intrigue worthy of an Italian opera en-sued and, many maneuvers later, the collec-tion was en route to Milan, paid for in part bycontributions from private citizens of the

city. ‘‘They were not just one or two wealthypatrons or La Scala itself, but the generalcitizenry. So we can say that this museumreally belongs to the people of Milan,’’ em-phasizes Sartorio.

The items arrived in 1911 but it took twoyears to catalog them, and the museum of-ficially opened in 1913. At the time, it had10,000 volumes of music criticism, bio-graphy and musical scores. The Livia SimoniLibrary became its own entity in 1952, whenthe Italian music critic Renato Simonidonated 54,000 books to La Scala in honorof his mother.

Both museum and library have grownsubstantially. Today they house more than350 paintings and sculptures, 50 mini-atures, over 150 porcelain figures, a collec-tion of puppets, musical instruments and ar-tisanal objects, and 150,000 books andrelated items. The latter include 10,300 let-ters from composers, directors and singers,2,255 sketches of theater scenes, 3,000posters, 6,000 libretti, 30 complete operamanuscripts and 7,000 photographs.

The curiosities include Puccini’s watch,Rossini’s glasses, locks of Mozart’s hair, acast of Chopin’s hand and — among manyitems of Verdiana — his first spinet, his

LEADERSHIP

NEW DIRECTION FOR YEARS AHEAD

Opera enthusiasts can’t get enough oftheir favorite singers. Recitals help meetthe demand for appearances by belovedartists. The singer provides the entireshow, with a program and a piano accom-panist chosen by him or her. Thus a recitalensures an artistic freedom to the per-former that an opera appearance cannotprovide.

Recitals by opera stars began in the early20th century. Before then, recitals con-sisted of a pianist alone (as championed byFranz Liszt) or hybrid programs includingboth singers and musicians — usually a viol-inist and a pianist.

La Scala has been presenting singing re-citals for half a century, and will offer sevenof them in the coming season.

All seven artists have sung at La Scalabefore, so they are no strangers to the op-era house and the tastes of its demandingaudience. On March 3, 2014, Ferruccio Fur-lanetto will appear. The Italian bass has astrong international following and playedthe title role in La Scala’s ‘‘Don Carlo’’ in2008.

Furlanetto will be followed on April 14 bythe German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, one oftoday’s most dazzling opera stars, in an ap-pearance supported by Rolex. Kaufmannwas the star of La Scala’s ‘‘Carmen’’ in2009 and headlined last year’s seasonopener, ‘‘Lohengrin.’’

May 25 will mark a recital by the Mexicantenor Roland Villazón, who has sung infre-quently at La Scala. He will be accompaniedby La Scala’s musical director, Daniel Baren-boim, at the piano, so the program is prac-tically a doubleheader.

Anja Harteros, the German consideredone of opera’s top sopranos, follows onJune 22. In November 2014, she will sing therole of Amelia in ‘‘Simon Boccanegra,’’ a re-prisal of her 2010 performance.

Another soprano, the Italian MariaAgresta, will be the recital headliner onSept. 8. Her expressive voice has beenshown to advantage in many Verdi works,

including ‘‘Il Trovatore,’’ ‘‘Nabucco’’ and‘‘Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio,’’ the latterat La Scala.

Bryn Terfel will take a turn on Sept. 28 inanother appearance supported by Rolex.The Welsh bass baritone debuted at LaScala in ‘‘The Marriage of Figaro’’ in 1997and has returned often, most recently

earlier this year as a forceful and comedicFalstaff applauded by the critics.

The final recital of 2014 will be that ofthe German baritone Matthias Goerne.Goerne specializes in lieder, which was theoriginal repertory of recital singers. Hislieder program in April 2013 at La Scala de-lighted the audience.n

completed. ‘‘My successor will add and ad-just to it but the basic program is done,’’says Lissner.

The 2014-15 season is exceptional be-cause the 2015 World’s Fair will be held inthe city and La Scala will be open in August.Because the fair’s theme is ‘‘feed the plan-et, energy for life,’’ Lissner commissionedthe composer Giorgio Battistelli to create anew opera around the themes of food and

ecology, based upon ‘‘An InconvenientTruth,’’ the movie about climate change byAl Gore, the former U.S. vice president. Itwill debut in May 2015, with Robert Carsenas the director and Gianandrea Nosedaconducting.

Reflecting on his time in Milan, Lissner re-calls an interview he gave when he firstcame to La Scala in 2005. ‘‘I said that if Iwere lucky, I would stay at most 10 years,’’

he says. ‘‘That is the maximum, I think, thatsomeone should be in this position. I willhave worked here nine years by the time Ileave, so the timing is perfect.’’

Emphasizing that he will continue towork with La Scala in co-productions, headds: ‘‘This has been one of the great ad-ventures of my life, truly fantastic. Youmust come to work each day with passionfor what you are doing.’’n

MUSEUM

REPOSITORY OF A STORIED HISTORY

Plácido Domingo willperform the title roleof Verdi’s ‘‘SimonBoccanegra,’’ conductedby Daniel Barenboim,La Scala’s musicaldirector.

ROLEX CULTURE PARTNERS:SPOTLIGHT ON LA SCALA

The Euronews ‘‘Musica’’ seriesgoes behind the scenes at someof the most outstanding operaand classical musical experiencesin the world. To watch ‘‘Musica’’videos with Jonas Kaufmann,Gustavo Dudamel and DanielBarenboim at La Scala, go to theWeb site at www.euronews.com/tag/la-scala.

Medici.tv offers live Webcasts and alarge catalog of classical musicvideos. La Scala is one of thepreeminent opera houses featuredon the site. To see the site’scollection of videos from La Scala,which includes operas as well asconcerts by the house’s orchestra,go to www.medici.tv/#/teatro-alla-scala.

Opera Online covers works of operas,opera houses, composers andmusicians, and productions. For itsScala overview, go to www.opera-online.com/items?q=scala. A newarticle on Verdi, whose first operawas produced at La Scala in 1839,is at www.opera-online.com/en/articles/in-the-footsteps-of-verdi-in-santagata.n

grand piano and 200 personal letters writtenby him.

The museum is in the process of digitizingeverything. ‘‘Computers have changedthings dramatically for us,’’ notes Sartorio.‘‘We don’t display original letters, but ratherdigital copies. Letters, manuscripts, paint-ings, puppets and many other items are notphysically here in the museum. They arestored safety elsewhere, and we make digit-al versions available.’’

Digitization came in very handy in 2013,the year of the Verdi bicentennial. The mu-seum had a huge outpouring of requests forimages of the composer, given his close af-filiation with La Scala.

The introduction of new technology in themuseum was facilitated by the restructuringof the opera house between 2001 and2004. ‘‘Fifteen years ago, we had majorstructural problems,’’ admits Sartorio. Sowhen La Scala closed for a three-year renov-ation, that also became an opportunity tomodernize the museum. While the theatermoved to Teatro Ansaldo, the museum andlibrary were transferred to a separate sitenear the Church of the Last Supper.

The design of the restructured museumwas the subject of vigorous discussion.Should it retain the ambience of the past orbreak with tradition and move into the fu-ture? Pier Luigi Pizzi, a noted set designer anddirector at La Scala, opted for a re-creationof the atmosphere of the museum as it waswhen it first opened.

Today the museum and library are underthe direction of Renato Garavaglia, who hasworked at La Scala since 1984. He overseesthe permanent, temporary and traveling ex-hibits, a staff of 10 and an influx of 230,000visitors a year.

Many more are expected for the 2015World’s Fair in Milan. For that occasion,’’says Sartorio, ‘‘we will be showing more cos-tumes and mounting new exhibits.’’n

The air in the practice room is bright withthe gleaming smiles of the students, andtheir faces glisten with perspiration. It is No-vember, and rehearsals for the Decemberopening of ‘‘The Nutcracker’’ are in full swingat Accademia Teatro alla Scala.

La Scala is more than an opera house; it isa school with more than 1,000 students from16 countries taking classes in music, dance,set design, costuming, audiovisual tech-niques, photography and arts management.

The ballet school, in a 19th-century Mil-anese building, is the oldest; it is celebratingits 200th birthday. In 1813, there were 12students; this year there are 436. They in-clude 228 children between 6 and 10 yearsof age, and 208 students between 11 and18 in an eight-year preparatory program.Dancers from the latter group will appear in‘‘The Nutcracker.’’

A two-year program for aspiring operasingers has 12 students with an average age

TRAINING

YOUNG ARTISTS LEARN THEIR CRAFTof 24. They are selected — after audition —from all over the world, with non-Italianssponsored by the Italian Foreign Ministry. Thechoral program has 60 students, 13 years oldand up, who study for six or seven years. It, too,is a professional launchpad for its alumni.

The orchestra school is also a two-yearprogram. Eighty students between the agesof 22 and 25 study under masters and havethe opportunity to perform in concerts in Italyand abroad, working with world-class con-ductors. The academy’s orchestra performs,conducted by Daniele Rustioni, in ChicagoDec. 2 and in Bethesda, Maryland, on Dec. 4,closing the celebrations of the Year of ItalianCulture in the United States.

Ten years ago, La Scala began a 14-month arts management program with Boc-coni University in Milan. Five months ofclasses are followed by an internship — notnecessarily at La Scala and not exclusivelyfor opera management — and a thesis.

Éléonore Létang from France is one ofthis year’s interns, currently working at LaScala’s academy. She says she chose theprogram because she wants to go into the-atrical management. ‘‘My parents are in thetalent side of this business, but I want to be aproducer,’’ she explains. ‘‘Our teachers arefrom all over, and we get to work in major in-stitutions when we graduate. That is thebeauty of this program.’’

The students practicing for ‘‘TheNutcracker’’ would agree. Former membersof their ranks include Roberto Bolle andCarla Fracci.n

LA SCALA

CENTERSTAGE

La Scala’s museum, housed in a building adjacent to the theater, is celebrating its 100th birthday.

A group of dancers from the ballet school of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala.

Rolando Villazón made his Scala debutas Nemorino in ‘‘L’Elisir d’Amore’’ in 2010.

The Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov’s newproduction of ‘‘La Traviata’’ opens the season.

Jonas Kaufmann, who starred ‘‘Lohengrin’’ at La Scala last year, will sing a recital there in April 2014.

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