Teatro alla Scala, Milan

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Crossing the Galeria Vittorio Emanuele from south to north, you come out in the famous Piazza della Scala. On the far side of the square there is La Scala theater and opposite of it stands Palazzo Marino, today the City Hall of Milano. The monument in the central position of the square portrays Leonardo da Vinci surrounded by his pupils.
Leonardo da Vinci is considered one of the most multi-talented people to have lived on this planet. The monument, erected in 1872, is sculpted by Pietro Magni as an piedestal, showing Leonardo asnd his favourite pupils. Reliefs in the base of the monument depicting paintings, sculpting, engineering and architecture, some of the disciplines that da Vinci mastered. During his life, Leonardo da Vinci lived in many different cities and his masterpiece "Last Supper" was created during his stay in Milano.

All the seats in the "stalls" (or "orchestra" as we would say in American English) are Category I seats at La Scala, meaning they cost EUR 170 per seat on an average evening.

As far as I know you have a good view of the stage from any of these seats on the lower level, unless some very tall person or someone with a big head happens to be sitting right in front of you.

You should be aware, though, that not all Category I seats have good visibility. The front seats in the boxes (see previous tip) are also Category I and also cost EUR 170, but some of them have an extremely limited view of the stage. So just paying the highest price is no guarantee you will see the whole stage.

When La Scala was renovated from 2002 to 2004 the old carpets on the lower floor were removed and replaced by wooden floors, which evidently are better for the acoustics.

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On one of my Strasbourg tips I noted that I had paid 46.80 Euros at the Strasbourg opera house for a seat with only a partial view of the stage.

At the time this struck me as being rather crass, but it turns out to have been good value for money compared to Milan's Teatro alla Scala, where I paid 66.00 Euros for a seat with no view of the stage whatsoever. The only way I could see even part of the stage was to stand up and lean over, thus blocking the (limited) view of two other people behind me. So I only did this every five minutes or so, for a quick look.

Actually I was forewarned about this, because La Scala acknowledges the problem on their website.

"Dear members of the audience," they write, "La Scala is a theatre with boxes in the style known as 'Italian', designed by the architect Piermarini in 1778 for Milan back then. It has a plan in straight horseshoe, that is, tapered to the proscenium - which is an extreme and rigorous evolution of the antique Greek theatre."

They go on to say that an opera house like La Scala, "above all in the boxes", requires an "active" participation on the part of the audience, and they mention a famous historical drawing showing people leaning out to see the stage.

"We therefore publish on our website a significant sample of the views from the boxes, so that everyone can know the dimension, the disposition and the spirit of a theatre built for the customs and habits of the late 18th century audience. To prepare oneself to an experience that is somehow also a travel in time."

From the photos on their website you do get a hint of what awaits you, but only a hint, since the photos were taken when the house was empty, so in reality you see even less as soon as someone is sitting in front of you.

There were five people in my box. The Italian man had been to La Scala before and had booked a "seat" where he could stand the whole time and not block anybody else's view. The French woman said she went to all the new productions at the Bastille opera house in Paris, where she never paid more than 20 Euros and always had a full view of the stage.

An elderly American couple had the two front seats of our box. They had paid 170 Euros each for their seats, plus various booking fees and agency markups, so that altogether the evening had cost them well over seven hundred U.S. dollars even though they could see only about a third of the stage.

The woman didn't mind, because she slept through the whole performance anyway, but her husband was bitterly disappointed. He was a 75-year-old retired professor who had been dreaming all his life of seeing an opera at La Scala, and he was totally shattered by the reality of the place. Because of problems with his back he couldn't even lean out over the edge to get a better view.

During the first intermission he complained bitterly to the ushers about this situation, and in the second intermission they told him that he and his wife could move down to the stalls (aka orchestra-level) where they had found two free seats.

So I got to sit in his 170-euro seat for the last third of the evening, which was a great improvement for me because I could actually see a fraction of the stage.

What I "saw" that evening was Il trittico, a collection of three short operas by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).

When I returned to Frankfurt am Main people asked me if the Scala production of Il trittico was as good as the one at the Frankfurt Opera a few months before. Well, it wasn't, but since I only saw snippets of the staging I can't really comment in any great detail.

Second, third and fourth photos: Looking up at the four tiers of boxes and two galleries. From the center boxes directly opposite the stage you can actually see what's going on.

Fifth photo: Just before show time.

To understand the seating arrangements at La Scala and similar opera houses, keep in mind that in the 18th century the best seats in the house were not the ones where you could see the stage, but the ones where the rest of the audience could see you -- if you chose to expose yourself to their view.

You have to imagine the common folks down in the stalls gazing up at the boxes and exclaiming to each other: "Look, the Countess X is in her box tonight! I saw her! She even smiled at me, sort of." At least the Countess could get her kicks imagining that that's what the common folks were saying.

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The two upper tiers at La Scala are known as the galleries.

For my second evening at La Scala I paid EUR 24.00 for a ticket in the last row of the topmost gallery. From the seat itself I could see nothing, but since there was no one behind me I could simply stand up the whole time and see nearly the entire stage, except for a small strip that was blocked by a pillar. So my 24 Euro gallery seat was much better than the 66 Euro box seat I had had the week before.

The opera I saw from the gallery was the premiere (actually a revival of a 1997 production by Graham Vick, but they still called it a premiere) of Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).

On the back of every La Scala ticket it says: "Formal dress is required at premiere performances." And on their website they say: "Gentlemen are kindly requested to wear evening dress for premieres. Gentlemen are in any case required to wear a jacket and tie at all performances." (In Italian: " È gradito l'abito scuro per le prime rappresentazioni e sempre la giacca e la cravatta per i Signori spettatori.")

I was surprised at this, so I posted a query in the Milan Forum here on VirtualTourist, and was quickly assured by VT member Maurizioago that a suit and tie would do. ("...and no beard! I'm joking!")

In fact it turned out that the gallery spectators at La Scala were just as sloppily dressed as their counterparts in all the other opera houses I know.

Another thing I had heard was that people in the galleries were hyper-critical and quick to boo at the slightest provocation -- and this turned out to be very true! At the end of the evening they booed just about everybody who ventured out on stage, including the conductor Kazushi Ono and the soprano Violeta Urmana, both of whom I thought did all right.

One woman in front of me kept shouting "Vergogna! Vergogna!" (Shame! Shame!) and a short but loud altercation erupted between the boo-people and the bravo-people.

In my opinion the performance went reasonably well despite the fact that star baritone Leo Nucci, who was singing the title role of Macbeth, got sick and had to be replaced after the first act. His understudy Ivan Inverardi took over and saved the show, but some people even booed him at the end, quite unfairly. (He's not a fantastic singer like Nucci, but he's easier to understand and he's a good actor.)

A high point of the performance for me was a ballet at the beginning of the third act. This is usually left out nowadays, but La Scala retained it, and it was beautifully danced by La Scala's Ballet Company -- more about them in a later tip.

Second photo: As in a lot of older opera houses (Stuttgart, for example) people with gallery tickets do not enter through the main entrance, but through a side entrance leading to this nondescript staircase that leads up to their (relatively) cheap seats.

Third photo: Gallery spectators have their own foyer for the intermissions aka intervals. As you can see, they are not formally dressed.

Fourth photo: Spectators in the galleries just before show time.

Also present at this same performance of Verdi's Macbeth was Opera Chic (aka Courtney Smith), who according to Classical Singer magazine is "the world’s foremost opera blogger".

(Her own self-description: "I'm a young American woman living in Milan, and you're not. I go to La Scala a lot, and you don't.")

But she was sitting downstairs somewhere, not up in the galleries with us impecunious folks.

She posted her first report during the intermission after the first act: "BREAKING: 'Indisposed' Leo Nucci Leaves Scala Stage Mid-Macbeth, Understudy Ivan Inverardi (Who?) Saves Teh Day".

In this report she wrote among other things: "Opera Chic's hugest get-well-soon to Maestro Nucci, greatest Verdi baritone of this post-Cappuccilli age; and big props -- no matter how he sang -- to Inverardi who had to step to the plate in an emergency."

I've never met Opera Chic, by the way (we use different entrances and staircases), but she's never met me either, so that makes us even.

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A few days before each premiere La Scala presents an introductory talk, in Italian, about the upcoming production.

These talks are held in the “Arturo Toscanini” foyer at 6 pm. Admission is free and you don't need a ticket to get in, you just have to be one of the first 250 people to arrive at the main entrance of La Scala. When I was there the foyer wasn't quite full, so they didn't have to turn anybody away.

Unfortunately the talk I attended happened to be on my first evening in Milan, shortly after I got off the train, so my Italian listening comprehension was still somewhat rusty. I understood some of the more obvious points (things I already knew about Verdi's opera Macbeth), but missed most of the subtleties. And when people laughed I never knew what they were laughing about.

Second photo: The speaker was Antonio Rostangno from the University "La Sapienza" in Rome.

Third photo: Bust of Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), composer of Cavalleria Rusticana and other operas, in the Foyer Arturo Toscanini.

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We weren't lucky enough to be in Milan to catch a performance at the Teatro alla Scala, but we did take a tour through this historic venue. Outside, while nice, the building does not really grab your eye. Inside, however, is a different story. Walking through the halls and peering into the theater was quite a thrill. Next time we'll definitely catch a performance.

The Teatro alla Scala, Milan's famous opera house, was completed in the late 18th century, to replace a former theatre destroyed by fire. Its grand building has hosted the world premieres of several operas. You can purchase a cheap standby ticket on the day of the performance.

I went to the Teatro della Scala box office and purchased a ticket for the ballet. When I left the box office and looked at the ticket, I realized the performance would be held at Teatro degli Arcimboldi, miles away from the city center and lacking the historical beauty of Teatro della Scala. The lesson here is to check with the box office attendant before you buy your ticket ( biglietto in Italian) and make sure your performance is in the Teatro della Scala. For €5 you can also take a tour of the Theatre Museum, for those who want to experience the beautiful architecture and design without seeing a show.