Highlight of Italian cultural life, the "Prima" (Premiere) had to give up its audience last year: due to the Covid, it had been replaced by "A riveder le stelle" ("To see the stars again") , a closed-door show mixing opera arias and ballets, broadcast on television.

"We are very lucky to be open, it's a bit of a miracle, while so many theaters have had to remain closed," Dominique Meyer, director of La Scala since mid-2020, told AFP, citing the Opera in Vienna, which he had conducted before coming to Milan, or those in Dresden and Leipzig in Germany.

"I would like our premiere to be like a light to keep the flame going so that we understand that one day this nightmare will end," he said.

Dominique Meyer, director of La Scala, during an interview with AFP in Milan, July 12, 2021 MARCO BERTORELLO AFP

The only tribute paid to the Covid, the gala dinner is canceled, while the room will be filled to capacity with 2,000 spectators, some of whom have paid up to 2,500 euros for their ticket.

After six months of silence, La Scala was able to reopen its doors to the public last May, with a reduced number of spectators, confined to the balconies, before a return to normal in October.

Lust for power

"Macbeth", inspired by the eponymous tragedy of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), an intrigue of love, hatred and thirst for power, in a staging punctuated by special effects by Davide Livermore, will be directed by Riccardo Chailly.

"We wanted to demonstrate the almost abrasive modernity of Macbeth, with a freshness, a theatricality, which is even sometimes alarming", explains the musical director of La Scala.

Lady Macbeth "pushes her husband to commit multiple murders to win the crown. It is a very serious, tragic event, unfortunately close to many situations that the world is currently living", he argues.

Russian soprano Anna Netrebko during a rehearsal of "Macbeth" at La Scala in Milan, November 28, 2021 Handout TEATRO ALLA SCALA / AFP

The unscrupulous Shakespearean heroine is embodied by the Russian diva Anna Netrebko, customary of the "Prima" of La Scala.

"It is one of the most complicated representations that I have known", she admits, invoking the perpetual coming and going of the decor which sometimes lifts her to dizzying heights.

"You'll hear something you've never heard before in Macbeth, it's absolutely wonderful," promises the soprano.

In the role of Macbeth, the Italian baritone Luca Salsi, evokes, him, "a contemporary history of power and blood" played in "clothes of today", but with "old weapons" like "the enormous sword "which he brandishes on stage.

Baritone Luca Salsi during a rehearsal of "Macbeth" at La Scala in Milan, November 28, 2021 Handout TEATRO ALLA SCALA / AFP

The dreamlike setting is monumental, sometimes evoking a panorama of skyscrapers typical of large American cities, sometimes a gigantic labyrinth, a metaphor for the tortuous paths in which the minds of the protagonists wander.

Illusion and reality

Cities with multiple perspectives, where the borders between the real and the unreal blur, as in Christopher Nolan's film "Inception" (2010), a sci-fi thriller in which Leonardo DiCaprio plunges into the subconscious of his victims to steal or implant memories.

"This universal drama" on a "barbaric tyranny" could be played out "in New York, Singapore or Milan, because faced with the dictatorship, human beings are all in the same boat", explains Davide Livermore.

The musical evening, still organized on December 7, Saint-Ambrose day, the patron saint of Milan, will be broadcast live by Rai, Italian public television, and by various other channels, radios and many cinemas elsewhere. in Europe.

More than thirty places in Milan, theaters, museums, public spaces, even a prison, will resonate with the airs of "Macbeth", with projections on the big screen.

The Scala stage, during a rehearsal of "Macbeth" in Milan, November 28, 2021 Handout TEATRO ALLA SCALA / AFP

If the version chosen by La Scala corresponds to that performed in Paris in 1865, the fourth act was enriched with a scene appearing in that of 1847, the death of Macbeth.

"It's very rare, it's very beautiful music, very dramatic", comments Dominique Meyer.

"The singer must have an Olympic form to be able to support the length".

© 2021 AFP