Teatro alla Scala

The highlight of our visit to Milan was attending the performance of Verdi's Falstaff at La Scala.

We visited the Piazza alla Scala after our morning stroll through the Galleria.  In front is a statue of Leonardo Da Vinci and a monument to the arts and sciences.

We returned that evening after a nice dinner at a restaurant that is part café, part wine tasting room, part food specialty market.  You sit in alcoves created by shelves on which their pastas, marmalades, coffees, pralines, and other goodies are displayed.  We had some great risotto!




As we approached the Piazza from the Galleria, we could see flags waving and hear protesters.  It seems that the theater is across the plaza from the Palazzo Maritimo, which is Milan's City Hall.  We got there as the event was winding down, so the path to the opera house was not blocked.

Teatro alla Scala

Entering the Teatro della Scala is like stepping back in time.  Originally completed in 1778, it was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943 and immediately rebuilt. 

You are greeted by ushers dressed in black (a formal jacket with tails), wearing a medallion on a chain. The usher had to unlock the door to our box for us. 

waiting to see if the front row people show up

I had purchased seats in the second row of the box, but, no one showed up, so we got first row.  A two-year modernization/restoration project completed 10 years ago added seat-back electronic subtitles (or in our case box-front), so we could follow along in English.

Like the performance in Florence, this production of Falstaff was modern.  The opening scene had Falstaff, dressed in long johns, sitting on a large bed in a hotel room surrounded by at least 15 room service carts with the remnants of his dinner.  The waiter presents him with a small packet containing his bill which, when he opens it, unfolds all the way to the floor. 

The best scene was when the women who are plotting to embarrass Falstaff hide him in a laundry basket.  In the traditional staging, they simply roll the basket down the hill into the river.  This scene was staged in a modern Italian kitchen, and the men searching for Falstaff threw everything out of the cupboards onto the floor... it then took six guys to lift the basket to the kitchen window and drop it out, just as the woman's husband comes in and gets drenched as the basket hits the water.

It was opera buffo at its best!