Scala di Milano: the Prima convinces also on TV, with 2.6 million viewers

• Before the Scala in Milan, Livermore: only with art all together we will return to see the stars again

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08 December 2020The television premiere of La Scala convinced the public. To see "... to see the stars again". The show without an audience, according to the anticovid rules, which went live on Rai1 obtained 2 million 608 thousand spectators (to which all those who followed the event also on Rai Radio3, in Eurovision and in streaming worldwide) should be added. A success of public and share (14.7%). The number of spectators is just below the absolute record set by Tosca last year (2 million 850 thousand spectators) with the difference that the opera was then staged on Saturday and an hour later.

It will be remembered as the First without an opera, but with a blockbuster show worthy of the world's most famous opera house. A show imagined for the small screen, entirely recorded, which convinced the aficionados of Piermarini, but which everyone hopes, in the words of the conductor Riccardo Chailly, will remain a "unicum" in the history of Italian opera.

At La Scala last night the curtain rose for "A riveder le stelle", the concert-event that replaced, for the first time since the post-war period, the traditional Prima di Sant'Ambrogio, retracing the operatic literature on TV on Rai1 800, Italian and beyond. Not a simple gala, but an unprecedented show in three hours of program, strongly desired by the superintendent, Dominique Meyer, who did not let himself be taken by the discouragement that in recent months also undermined himself among the stages of Piermarini, with several members of the choir infected, effectively preventing him from setting up Donizetti's 'Lucia di Lammermmor' which was supposed to inaugurate the La Scala season.

An unusually silent theater, with the boxes turned off, emptied of their usual audience. No flowers, no institutions. The only light to illuminate the room is that of the ledwall of the stage. Among those present only the journalists and some members of the board of directors, the only 'lucky' admitted, together with the operators, the masks and some photographers, to follow the evening inside the theater.

Then, as usual, the orchestra performed the national anthem with the theater workers looking out from the boxes to sing the Mameli anthem. On the stage a parade of stars, first of all the tenor Placido Domingo.

"There was a huge job, a maximum concentration every day" explains one of the orchestra professors who played in the Prima Scala, who for the first time, however, saw from home. Recordings went on in record time for six days with a job in which everyone gave "everything".

"La Scala is there, it is on its feet and wants to move forward": the superintendent of La Scala Dominique Meyer is satisfied with the extraordinary premiere made in six days, with artists from all over the world. "We all want to find spectators in the stalls and on the boxes, the musicians in the pit and the singers on the stage because we need to be together", but until we can "look for solutions".

"What we did was an act of militancy, we have to start from here, culture is the first company in this country. It is not from one political side or the other, theater belongs to everyone . Do we want to defend him because he is the most recognized thing about us abroad? ". Director Davide Livermore said this at the end of the show. "It is from art that we have to start again to discover that we are better".

'' Rai confirms itself at the service of music and culture. 'A riveder le stelle', which opened the La Scala season, was a first of excellence, a tribute by the best Italian and international artists to the great opera house of Milan, which ideally became close to the whole of Italy, in a difficult passage of national history ''. Rai CEO Fabrizio Salini writes it in a note. '' Once again, thanks to Rai Cultura and the many professional skills of the Company. The public radio and television service has shown itself to be up to a beautiful challenge full of suggestions ''.

'' A proof of love for opera by La Scala and its main performers with a surprising and spectacular scenography. Rai is happy to have been able to contribute to an unprecedented Premiere, given the circumstances and the speed with which it was conceived and built. I am proud of the work of Rai Cultura and of the Milan Production Center which have shown dedication and professionalism in splendid, renewed harmony with all the collaborators of the Teatro alla Scala ", declares the president of Rai, Marcello Foa.