Milan (AFP)
"Tosca", Puccini's famous opera, opens Saturday the new season of the Scala in Milan, a last "first" for its director Alexander Pereira who is preparing to hand over the French Dominique Meyer.
"This is an important moment, when one chapter will close and another one will be opened, but life is done that way," said Mr. Pereira with emotion, during the presentation of this inaugural evening.
The 72-year-old Austrian would have liked to finish his career at La Scala, where he has been officiating for more than five years. But the Milan theater's board of directors decided otherwise.
His record? Mr. Pereira, who will be directing the Florence Opera from mid-December, sees it positively. "We have increased annual sales from 28 to 35 million euros" while the number of patrons has increased, he says, also evoking the absence of a strike under his mandate, a sign of the good atmosphere prevailing there .
"We took the theater outside and brought tens of thousands of children to La Scala, which is perhaps the most beautiful thing I've done," he adds.
The end of his term has, however, been tarnished by his plan to finance La Scala also with Saudi funds. The idea was finally abandoned after an outcry over the issue of human rights in the kingdom.
His successor, Dominique Meyer, current director of the Vienna Opera, will be present on Saturday at the "Prima" (the "Premiere"), one of the key moments of Italian cultural life, held every year on December 7 St. Ambrose Day, the patron saint of Milan.
Among the personalities announced at this prestigious evening are Italian President Sergio Mattarella and several ministers.
La Scala has chosen "Tosca" to begin its new season 2019-2020 which will again honor the Italian tradition with nine works on the fifteen operas presented.
- "Extraordinary travel" -
"Tosca" will be presented in its original version, the one created in Rome in January 1900.
"Puccini corrected himself continuously, removing elements.The original opera contained eight additional musical inserts, which Puccini had removed from the second performance in February 1900 in Turin," said Riccardo Chailly, the musical director of Scala who will lead opera.
"These elements will be unveiled for the first time to the public", they are inserts + short + but which give a lot of strength, or + sense + drama, "he notes.
For the Italian conductor, "Tosca" is a "masterpiece". "To listen to this opera is an extraordinary journey, it is an opera that shakes", because "Tosca is an extremely strong woman, capable of killing for love, before the despair of love leads her to commit suicide".
The opera will be presented in a grandiose staging of the Italian Davide Limermore, with the famous Russian diva Anna Netrebko, Italian tenor Francesco Meli and Italian baritone Luca Salsi in the title roles.
La Scala is "the theater with a capital T", as evidenced by "the intensity of the work we have done," says the baritone, saying "very happy" to participate in this "First".
"Puccini was a genius, he wrote everything, as Verdi did, there is nothing to invent, just to interpret, to put himself at the service of what he wrote," he adds.
The premiere will be broadcast live by Rai, Italian public television, and various channels, radios and many cinemas in Europe.
Thirty-eight venues in Milan, theaters, museums and public spaces will simultaneously echo the tunes of "Tosca" with screenings on the big screen.
For the rest of its season, the Scala will present "Roméo et Juliette" by Gounod, three works by Verdi, including "La Traviata", and "The Journey to Reims" by Rossini.
© 2019 AFP