Description
The Teatro alla Scala is Milan's great opera house, in Piazza della Scala, a few steps from the Duomo. Since 1778 it has hosted opera, ballet and concerts, and its name is synonymous with opera the world over.
From outside it looks almost sober: a pale neoclassical facade designed by Giuseppe Piermarini, with a covered gallery where carriages once pulled up. The surprise is inside, in the horseshoe-shaped auditorium, all gold, ivory and red damask, with four tiers of boxes and two galleries for about two thousand spectators.
The royal box is the most important of all: it sits in the center, facing the stage, and is lined in crimson red. Above the proscenium a large clock marks the hours in Roman numerals and the minutes in Arabic ones. The curtain is crimson velvet, embroidered in gold.
From the ceiling hangs the chandelier, a gift from the glassmakers of Murano after the Second World War. The wooden vault is designed like a sounding board: the fame of La Scala's acoustics starts here.
In the foyer and the lounges you walk among mirrors, stuccoes and marble columns; the third-tier lounge, the one for box holders, is named after Arturo Toscanini and has windows on the square. A little further on, in the building next door, is the Theater Museum, with mementos of the greats of opera.
On August 3, 1778 the first opera opened, Salieri's "L'Europa riconosciuta". In the audience, Pietro Verri wrote: "the eyes are always busy". The old court theater had burned down two years earlier: the noble families who had boxes there obtained Maria Theresa's permission to build a new one, paying for it out of their own pockets.
At the beginning, music was almost a pretext. In the boxes people dined and received guests, in the stalls they danced, and they gambled: forbidden everywhere else in Milan, but not at the theater during performances. The buzz of the gaming tables reached all the way into the hall.
Then came Verdi. After a flop he was about to give up music, but the impresario Merelli put a libretto in his hands: it was Nabucco, which in 1842 set a city in the middle of the Risorgimento on fire. Puccini, on the other hand, suffered here the resounding flop of Madama Butterfly.
The bombs of August 1943 left only the stage and the walls standing. On May 11, 1946 the reborn hall reopened with a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini, back on the Scala podium: an event for the whole of Milan.
Don't miss
• The auditorium with its boxes.
• The Murano chandelier.
• The Theater Museum.
• Piermarini's facade.
Did you know?
• Until 1907 the orchestra played at the same level as the stalls, with no real pit: the current pit dates from the early 20th century.
• The name comes from a demolished church, Santa Maria della Scala, founded by Regina della Scala.
• The season's opening night on December 7, the feast of St. Ambrose, Milan's patron saint, has been a fixture since 1951: that evening Maria Callas had her first Milanese triumph.
From outside it looks almost sober: a pale neoclassical facade designed by Giuseppe Piermarini, with a covered gallery where carriages once pulled up. The surprise is inside, in the horseshoe-shaped auditorium, all gold, ivory and red damask, with four tiers of boxes and two galleries for about two thousand spectators.
The royal box is the most important of all: it sits in the center, facing the stage, and is lined in crimson red. Above the proscenium a large clock marks the hours in Roman numerals and the minutes in Arabic ones. The curtain is crimson velvet, embroidered in gold.
From the ceiling hangs the chandelier, a gift from the glassmakers of Murano after the Second World War. The wooden vault is designed like a sounding board: the fame of La Scala's acoustics starts here.
In the foyer and the lounges you walk among mirrors, stuccoes and marble columns; the third-tier lounge, the one for box holders, is named after Arturo Toscanini and has windows on the square. A little further on, in the building next door, is the Theater Museum, with mementos of the greats of opera.
On August 3, 1778 the first opera opened, Salieri's "L'Europa riconosciuta". In the audience, Pietro Verri wrote: "the eyes are always busy". The old court theater had burned down two years earlier: the noble families who had boxes there obtained Maria Theresa's permission to build a new one, paying for it out of their own pockets.
At the beginning, music was almost a pretext. In the boxes people dined and received guests, in the stalls they danced, and they gambled: forbidden everywhere else in Milan, but not at the theater during performances. The buzz of the gaming tables reached all the way into the hall.
Then came Verdi. After a flop he was about to give up music, but the impresario Merelli put a libretto in his hands: it was Nabucco, which in 1842 set a city in the middle of the Risorgimento on fire. Puccini, on the other hand, suffered here the resounding flop of Madama Butterfly.
The bombs of August 1943 left only the stage and the walls standing. On May 11, 1946 the reborn hall reopened with a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini, back on the Scala podium: an event for the whole of Milan.
Don't miss
• The auditorium with its boxes.
• The Murano chandelier.
• The Theater Museum.
• Piermarini's facade.
Did you know?
• Until 1907 the orchestra played at the same level as the stalls, with no real pit: the current pit dates from the early 20th century.
• The name comes from a demolished church, Santa Maria della Scala, founded by Regina della Scala.
• The season's opening night on December 7, the feast of St. Ambrose, Milan's patron saint, has been a fixture since 1951: that evening Maria Callas had her first Milanese triumph.