Latest news with #TeatroallaScala
The Independent
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Milan's historic La Scala cracks down on tourist dress code
A historic opera house in Milan has cracked down on patrons and tourists entering the prestigious venue wearing summer attire such as shorts, tank tops and flip flops, warning they will be turned away if not dressed appropriately. The opera was seen as a symbol of wealth and exclusivity in 19th-century high society, and the bourgeois elite of this time period would have been expected to turn up in tailcoats, cravats and long evening dresses. While this opulent attire is not expected of patrons nowadays, Milan 's Teatro alla Scala opera house, commonly known as La Scala, has recently reinforced its smart dress code in the wake of opera-goers turning up in casual summer fashion. 'The public is kindly requested to dress in keeping with the decorum of the theatre, out of respect for the theatre and for other viewers,' La Scala 's policy warns. 'People wearing shorts or sleeveless T-shirts will not be allowed inside the auditorium; in this case, tickets will not be reimbursed.' The venue also has signs around the foyer and on tickets stating the same message, warning patrons that they will not get a refund if they turn up wearing clothes not in keeping with the 'decorum'. The rules over informal clothing were first introduced in 2015 when the summer season coincided with the World Expo in Milan, as a way to deter the influx of tourists turning up in summer wear. 'There are no special dress code requirements at La Scala,' a spokesperson at the theatre told The Independent. 'We are delighted that some of our audience members consider an evening at La Scala to be a special occasion and dress accordingly, but our priority is to welcome everyone and make sure they feel comfortable. 'This is precisely why, in 2015, we introduced restrictions on clothing that could cause discomfort to other audience members who have to share the often limited space of an 18th-century theatre. 'With the return of summer (an especially hot one), we reminded the audience of these rules, which have remained unchanged for ten years. 'It would not be right to tell spectators how to dress, but it is necessary that they do dress, as not to cause discomfort to other people,' the spokesperson added. Until now, dress codes at La Scala have not been strictly enforced, partly due to its former French director Dominique Meyer, who said he would rather have less smartly dressed operagoers than a theatre full of empty seats. Opera houses across the world have been creating initiatives to try to get younger people invested in this historic performance art, as well as making operas feel more welcoming and accessible to all, not just the upper classes. However, the venue has not pointed towards younger people for being the cause of the dress downgrade; instead, it is the increase of tourists in Milan. La Scala's spokesman added that there had been a 'change in behaviour led by visitors who do not follow opera but see La Scala as a landmark'. A recent article in La Scala's in-house magazine says that 'adapting one's attire to the occasion should be a conditioned reflex' and that 'common sense' should prevail in how to dress and behave in the theatre. 'And so it seems obvious to dress a little more elegantly for premieres than for repeat performances, and for evening performances than for afternoon ones', the La Scala 'Survival Manual' article added. 'Putting on a jacket and tying a tie, after all, aren't particularly demanding, or even painful, tasks.'
New York Times
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
La Scala Warns Opera Patrons: No Flip-Flops or Tank Tops Allowed
Few operagoers still button up tuxedos or roll on elbow-length gloves for a performance, as many venues have relaxed their dress codes. But tank tops, flip-flops and shorts? That's where Teatro alla Scala, the storied Milan opera house commonly known as La Scala, draws the line. The venue is stepping up the enforcement of its dress code this summer, reminding patrons via signs in the foyer to dress 'in keeping with the decorum of the theater.' The underdressed will not be allowed inside, according to its policy, which is also printed on tickets, nor will they be reimbursed. 'In order not to exclude anyone, it is necessary to establish some minimum rules,' Paolo Besana, a La Scala spokesman, wrote in an email. La Scala is the latest European opera to find itself in a sartorial bind as it tries to both court younger patrons and maintain the frisson of a fancy experience. 'For people who go to the opera occasionally, it is — by definition — something of an occasion,' said John Allison, the editor of Opera With Opera News, who said he had no personal issue going in jeans. 'That can be interpreted however people like.' Some think the concern is overplayed. 'The only clothes that matter in any opera house or theater are the ones on the stage,' Andrew Mellor, a roving critic, wrote in an Instagram message. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Korea Herald
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Busan Concert Hall opens with finest talent, advanced infrastructure
Opening festival led by Artistic Director Chung Myung-whun showcases Busan's potential as a classical music hub BUSAN — After Maestro Chung Myung-whun concluded Sunday evening's concert at the new Busan Concert Hall, he traced a circle in the air with his finger before gently tapping his heart — a gesture that seemed to acknowledge not only the musicians on stage but also the audience, who responded with a standing ovation. It was a moment of gratitude and recognition, shared by all present at a historic milestone in Busan's classical music journey. The city's long-awaited concert hall finally opened its doors last weekend. Chung, who serves as the artistic director of Classic Busan, a municipal office of Busan Metropolitan City responsible for operating the Busan Concert Hall and the Busan Opera House, which is set to debut in 2027, took the podium three times over the weekend. Friday's performance was an invitation-only concert, attended by government officials and various dignitaries, many of whom were not seasoned classical music listeners, as evidenced by applause between movements. The program, featuring Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56 and Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 "Choral" was repeated Saturday afternoon. This time, classical music enthusiasts from Busan — Chung's hometown —filled the seats, and the atmosphere was entirely different: charged, attentive and emotionally resonant. On Sunday evening, Chung, who is also set to lead the prestigious Teatro alla Scala in Milan from 2027, conducted Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major "Emperor" with celebrated pianist Cho Seong-jin at the keyboard and Symphony No. 3 in C minor Op. 78 "Organ." For all three performances, the 72-year-old towering figure of Korean classical music performed works he had fully internalized, entirely from memory — except the Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56, for which he both conducted and played the piano. Pipe organ, a rare instrument The weekend also marked the public debut of the concert hall's pipe organ — a rarity outside the Seoul metropolitan area. Crafted by Germany's Freiburger Orgelbau, the instrument features 4,423 pipes and 64 stops, capable of producing a range of tonal colors. Renowned pianist and organist Cho Jae-hyuck opened Sunday's concert with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, showcasing the full dynamic range and architectural resonance of the new instrument. Returning for the second half of the performance on Sunday, Cho and the APO presented Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3 in C minor Op. 78 "Organ." 'This organ is large in scale and divided into multiple divisions, allowing it to accommodate a wide range of genres and performance contexts. Depending on how it's combined, it can produce majestic or harmoniously blended sounds, like a palette filled with a rich variety of colors. Each element isn't just optional; rather, every part serves a specific purpose with clear intent. Being able to perform using all of these thoughtfully designed components is incredibly rewarding,' Cho said during an interview over the weekend. 'I hope that Busan citizens will discover the unique charm of each stop (each referring to a particular set of pipes that produces a distinct sound) one by one,' Cho added. Top Asian musicians gather in Busan The Asia Philhamornic Orchestra comprises top-tier musicians from Korea, China and Japan — or those who have a strong connection with Korea. It has alternated between periods of activity and hiatus since its founding in 1997. Reconvening under Chung's direction for the opening of the Busan Concert Hall, the APO was responsible for showing the concert hall's full potential. The concertmaster was Park Ji-yoon, who also holds the distinction of being the first Asian and first woman to serve as concertmaster of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Other Korean musicians at the world's top orchestras also returned to perform on home soil, including Kim Han, principal clarinetist of the Paris National Opera, and Park Kyoung-min, violist with the Berlin Philharmonic. The orchestra also included musicians from the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the China National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra and Alexander Baty, principal trumpet of the Munich Philharmonic. 'When we come together under Maestro Chung, the music flows more naturally because we understand his conducting so deeply," Park said in an interview ahead of Saturday's concert. The 2,011-seat Busan Concert Hall, located inside Busan Citizens Park, features a vineyard-style seating that wraps around the stage, offering visual intimacy and optimal acoustic distribution. A sound cloud suspended above the audience adjusts audio direction to ensure even acoustics throughout the hall. The concert hall also includes a 400-seat chamber hall. Choi Jin, Korea's top tonmeister, said that a new concert hall typically takes some time to settle acoustically, but 'The venue is remarkably well-settled for such an early stage of its opening.' Sunwoo Ye-kwon, the first Korean winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2017, expressed his excitement for Busan's new addition. 'Musicians are grateful for this new venue for classical music," he said. On Monday, the celebrated pianist was set to take the stage with members of the APO to present "Beethoven and Romanticism," further showcasing the potential of the chamber hall. On Wednesday, Chung will again take the stage as a pianist at the chamber hall to present a selection of masterpieces of Viennese classical chamber music alongside APO members. The opening festival continues until Saturday, when a concert opera of Beethoven's 'Fidelio' will wrap up the festival.
Daily Maverick
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Vienna's Golden Hall: A journey of musical triumph and humbling embarrassment unfolds
An unforgettable experience has its embarrassing moment, though it won't detract from the wonder of it all. Two profoundly memorable things happened to me, at the same time, while on holiday this month. One fulfilled a lifelong dream and left me jubilant and wondrously awed. The other will be recorded as one of the more embarrassing moments of my long and mostly uneventful life. Both happened in Vienna, famously known as the City of Music because of its rich history as the classical world's cultural centre and home to those composing icons Mozart, Beethoven and Strauss. As an aside, it is also known as the City of Dreams, home to the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who believed dreams helped to access the unconscious mind and who, in 1938, fled Austria before Nazi Germany annexed it and began persecuting Jews. Another aside: Vienna is also known as the Capital of Europe's Spies, situated so closely as it is to the Iron Curtain of old. A surprising number of spy thrillers of the 20th century take place here, my favourite being John le Carré's A Perfect Spy, in which he used Vienna as a backdrop for his Cold War spy story. But I want to concentrate on cultural Vienna, a city with fewer people than Soweto, the locus of my amazement and humiliation. My love of classical music and opera has taken me to many magnificent venues – The Met in New York, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy, among them, each with its own special beauty. But nothing prepared me for the magnificence of the Golden Hall in Vienna's Musikverein, which is home to the renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. It was a drizzly grey day when we, a party of four in the city to celebrate a friend's milestone 70th birthday, arrived at the imposing building. Immediately I noticed that we were hopelessly underdressed — me in sneakers and under a cosy, unflattering puffer jacket covering a bulky sweater and casual slacks. It was 11am on a Sunday morning, but this 'subscription concert' (where you buy a season ticket and therefore have first pick of seats), inspired Vienna's societal elite to don their finest garb. People dress up for these events, and oh, what a spectacle it was. Formal fashion Women glided along in floor-length, mid-length and short evening gowns, some covered in sequins that ignored the daylight etiquette rule (though whose rule that is remains unknown). Furs, high heels, one tiara, gleaming jewels; men in jacket and tie or dress suits with traditional white silk opera scarves… the fashion was formal. Scent wafting off the concertgoers perfumed the foyer. Traditionally guttural German tripping of tongues sounded unusually melodic and sweet. But none of this — not even the thrill of the dress-up — prepared me for the inside of the Musikverein. We climbed and climbed flight after steep flight of stairs to get to the boxes lining the edges of this magnificent gilded hall, opened on 6 January 1870 by Emperor Franz Joseph. And then, breathless but exhilarated, we were in our eyrie beneath a canopy of golden splendour, the ceiling mural adorned with images of Apollo and the nine muses. Columns shaped like ancient female figures — golden caryatids — added to the grandeur of this space that is known for its acoustics and rated as one of the three finest concert halls in the world, along with Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and the Boston Symphony Hall. Remember, we had to contend with what tickets were left over after regular concertgoers had booked their season tickets, so we could hear but only see the orchestra if we craned over seated heads to glimpse the mostly penguin-suited men below. Dotted in between were women in demure black, mostly on violin or percussion instruments. The introduction of women musicians in the orchestra is a new phenomenon — it was, astonishingly, the sacred preserve of men until 1997. This concert taking place on a cool damp Sunday morning in the City of Dreams was particularly special and highly unusual for Vienna: all the main roles — composer, conductor and piano soloist — were played by women. Up first was Lithuanian composer and pianist Raminta Šerkšnytė's 2009 composition, Midsummer Song, for which the instrumentation was described as 'string orchestra with optional percussion with one performer: triangle, shaker, rain stick, wind chimes and vibraphone'. The 50-year-old composer named nature 'with its metaphorical comparison to the archetypical states of the human mind' as her main inspiration, describing her work as a 'pantheistic song, like a long journey to eternal light and to our inner peace of mind'. It was melodic. I found it moving. I loved it. But they're a hard lot to please, these knowledgeable Vienna music lovers. A woman seated close by muttered: 'I doubt that will ever be played in this hall again!' Dark-haired and petite with a powerful waving conductor's arm, 38-year-old Lithuanian Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (her credentials include serving as musical director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra), was more warmly received. Not so much the globally controversial 38-year-old Beijing-born American pianist Yuja Wang, whose skimpy attire fashion sense has been universally criticised. She emerged from the wings in a silver bare-backed bandage dress that barely covered her modesty, finished off with six-inch Louboutin red-soled heels. Sequined, modest-gowned women in our box bristled. 'She lets down women,' my neighbour whispered. 'Prostitute,' another woman said under her breath, but loudly enough to be heard. Transfixed Then Wang began playing that most popular concerto ever written, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor, her fingers expertly moving across the keys, her short black hair flying, her small body swaying, vibrating, moving to the music. We were transfixed as the exposed muscles in her shoulder blades rippled. My humiliation (and my friend's embarrassment) came at the first lull in the music when, with much enthusiasm and vigour, I began clapping. My neighbour waved her hands wildly in my face, shouting at me in German. Someone interpreted: She says stop clapping. You DO NOT clap between movements. The typical concerto is in three movements, or sections: a fast movement in sonata form, a slow and lyrical movement, and then another fast movement. I now know that the convention is that you do not clap until the end, a red-faced lesson learned in Vienna, in the beautiful Golden Hall. I remained seated and silent during the Sibelius Lemminkäinen Suite that ended the concert. What is it with women and the arts through the ages? I saw a series of exhibitions across London and Vienna — Dürer, Bruegel, Arcimboldo, Bassano, Edvard Munch, Goya, the impressionists Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, Cézanne. Not one single woman artist among them. Did women choose not to paint or sculpt or draw? The art history books tell us it was not encouraged and they were left to expend their creative energy on traditional arts more suited to women — like embroidery. I must admit that I was surprised by how recent was the admission of women to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. I wonder, too, why these older women concertgoers perpetuate women-hating stereotypes. Calling a young woman a prostitute because of her fashion choice seems a bit archaic in 2025. DM Charmain Naidoo is a journalist and media strategist.
The Age
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
When fossil fuels pollute Swan Lake: Provocative ballet opens in Brisbane
The production of Swan Lake by the French company Ballet Preljocaj has been acclaimed for its beautiful images and choreography, but its creator is having none of that. 'I'm not interested just to do beautiful things,' Angelin Preljocaj said. 'Art is not just to be beautiful – it has to talk about humanity, and what happens in our world. 'And the idea is to put Swan Lake in the context of the climatic problem.' Preljocaj was speaking in Brisbane ahead of the opening of his production, which has an exclusive season as part of the QPAC International Series. The series brings world-famous performing arts companies such as the Bolshoi Ballet and the Teatro alla Scala exclusively to Queensland, bypassing Sydney and Melbourne. Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the series had injected more than $32 million into the Queensland economy since its inception in 2009. The Ballet Preljocaj visit represents the restart of the series after COVID. First performed in 1877 and proclaimed a failure, Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake – about a prince, Siegfried, who falls in love with a woman, Odette, cursed by a magician to turn into a swan by day – would go on to become the most popular and iconic ballet in the canon.
