Rai Cultura has announced that it will collaborate with the Teatro alla Scala to bring three performances to audiences from the 2025-26 season. The first performance of the season will be the opening performance of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” which will be conducted by Riccardo Chailly and directed by Vasily Barkhatov. The cast will include Alexander Roslavets, Sara Jakubiak, Najmiddin {…}
Daniele Gatti has canceled all his upcoming performances at the Teatro alla Scala. According to the Italian press, Gatti, who was considered the favorite to become the new Music Director of La Scala, decided to cancel his engagements with the theater after Myung-Whun Chung was named Music Director. His next engagement with the company would have been Debussy’s “Pelléas et {…}
The Teatro alla Scala has announced its 2025-26 season. The season opens with Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” featuring Alexander Roslavets, Sara Jakubiak, Najmiddin Mavlyanov, Alexander Kravets, Valery Gilmanov, Yevgeny Akimov, Jirí Rajniš, Oleg Budaratskiy, Ekaterina Sannikova, Goderedzi Janelidze, Elena Maximova, Natalya Romaniw, Huanhong Li, and Vasyl Solodkyy. Riccardo Chailly conducts the new production by Vasily Barkhatov. Performance Dates: Dec. {…}
(Ph. Brescia – Amisano © Teatro alla Scala) In a suitcase–acquired expressly to transport it due to its weight and size–travels, rehearsal after rehearsal and performance after performance, the score of “Il nome della rosa,” weighing an impressive 15 kilograms. Yet the heft of this voluminous tome is not merely physical but also semiotic: it is the fruit of the {…}
The Teatro alla Scala has announced that Myung-Whun Chung will be the company’s next Music Director. Chung will take over the role in 2027 with an initial contract of three years. He will succeed Riccardo Chailly. The decision was made during a board meeting, during which the company’s General Director, Fortunato Ortombina, proposed Chung as the new Music Director. Throughout {…}
Riccardo Chailly has extended his contract as Music Director of the Teatro alla Scala until the end of 2026. Platea Magazine is reporting that the Board of Directors announced the news. The board will meet in May to discuss a successor. Some speculate that it could be Daniele Gatti, who was previously reported as the first choice. Chailly will open {…}
(Photo credit: Brescia and Amisano) “I should reproach myself even more if I were to allow myself to be credited with the initiative for the new genre of Italian opera … it is to my librettist Calzabigi that the main credit goes …” Gluck, letter of 1775 Let us speak directly of the opera at hand, recently brought to the {…}
(Photo credit: Brescia and Amisano) One of the most common phenomena of the 18th century was the pilgrimage of European composers to Italy, seeking to immerse themselves in the “alla italiana” compositional technique and then return to their homelands to apply this revolutionary formula. Such was the case of Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729–1774), who left his native Bohemia to settle {…}
(Credit: Olivia Kahler) Alasdair Kent made a name for himself performing in opera houses around the world, but his upcoming role as Frederic in West Australian Opera’s “The Pirates of Penzance” marks his principal debut in his home city of Perth, Western Australia. The role is one of many exciting firsts for the singer this year, who following his performance {…}
(Photo: Brescia e Amisano) It was December 7, 2019, when the curtain of Teatro alla Scala rose before the select audience that annually attends the Sant’Ambroeus performance, better known among opera lovers as “La prima della Scala,” the event that inaugurates the new season of the prestigious Italian theater. To open the 2019-20 season—unaware that it would soon be brutally {…}
The Teatro alla Scala has advanced plans for the Teatro alla Scala’s 2025-26 season. The season will open with Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” directed by Vasily Barkhatov and Sara Jakubiak. Riccardo Chailly will conduct. In February 2026, the company will give the entire “Ring Cycle” with Simone Young and Alexander Soddy. In April, the company will revive “Turandot” in {…}
