ITALY: Punctually, at 6 p.m. local time, the world's greatest opera house got the show back on the road last night. After almost three years of closure for a €61 million renovation and restoration, La Scala was back in business with a re-opening performance of Antonio Salieri's Europa Riconosciuta, a "show" that played to an audience of shakers and makers, glitterati and Milano Per Bene, reports Paddy Agnew
As TV stars, models, sportsmen (ex-Formula One driver Jean Alesi), politicians, pop singers and royalty (Emmanuele Filiberto of the House of Savoy) made their entrance into a chaotic, crowded foyer, there was a lot of "Who's she, then?" amongst the perplexed scrimmage of hacks and cameramen. When the indomitable Sofia Loren arrived, however, on the arm of designer Giorgio Armani, nobody needed to ask.
In the end, given that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had opted to nutmeg the media by making a side-door entrance, it was left to "La Loren" and "Giorgio" to set the tone for night. Both looked tanned and well, albeit not without the odd sign of kilometres on the clock. Smiling graciously, Loren stopped to tell us that media reports that this was a Scala début for her were untrue: "This is my second opening night at the Scala and it's just wonderful", said the 70-year-old grande dame.
On a night when the cool December airs did not prevent a number of the ladies showing much off-the-shoulder flesh, "La Loren" was suitably elegant in full-length black evening gown complete with a transparent, glittery top.
Standing beside her, Armani looked up in admiration - as well he might since he had designed her dress.
In the chaos of the opening night scrimmage, neither Loren nor Armani would have had time to notice the plaque on the wall above the foyer entrance where they stopped to pose for the cameras. That plaque recalls the last Scala restoration prior to this, namely a hurried, probably botched job carried out at the end of the second World War, leading to a May 1946 re-opening night under the baton of maestro Arturo Toscanini.
An hour and a half before curtain-up, the empty auditorium, complete with 20,000 fresh roses, looked utterly magnificent. Even though the theatre had been "gutted" so as to install state-of-the-art stage equipment and, even more importantly, to clear out second World War debris and replace it with a parquet, sprung floor, the external look of the new Scala is still gloriously, opulently red-velveted operatic magic.
As is now traditional on the opening night of La Scala, last night's performance was played off against a background of protest in the piazza in front of the theatre. Laid-off workers from the Alfa Romeo car plant at Arese near Milan and members of the CGIL trade union protesting health cuts were both making themselves heard, albeit at a respectable, police-cordoned distance:
"It is simply not right that Milan town council, the Milan region and the government should spend all that money on this restoration, nor that people pay up to €2,000 for a ticket tonight, when there are families all over the country that have difficulty making it to the end of the month," union activist Roberto told The Irish Times. "My monthly salary is just €1,000 after tax, half a ticket for tonight. That's just not right."
Not that those objections appeared to spoil the fun for the La Scala faithful. At the end of the first act, they warmly applauded maestro Ricardo Muti and sopranos Désirée Rancatore and Diana Damrau whilst initial reactions in the foyer were largely very favourable.
Adding intrigue to an evening already loaded with historical significance was the choice of last night's opera. Europa Riconosciuta is by 18th century Italian composer Antonio Salieri, a contemporary of Mozart and composer in residence at the Hapsburg court in Vienna. Salieri would have long since passed into oblivion were it not for the (historically false) accusation that he poisoned his great rival, an accusation brought to cinema screens by Milos Forman's Amadeus.
Back in 1778, Salieri was commissioned to write a work for the opening night of the new Teatro Regio Ducal, which soon became better known as the Teatro alla Scala. Dedicated to "His Most Serene Archduke Ferdinand, Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria", and given a lavish production, Europa Riconosciuta was a total flop which, until last night, had gone the intervening period without once being performed again anywhere. Every dog has its day, even 226 years later.