(ANSA) - MILAN, NOVEMBER 22 - The original version of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, the one desired by the Russian author, which was immediately censored, will open the Scala season on December 7.
An opera that has had a long history in the Milanese theater, it was directed by giants such as Arturo Toscanini and Claudio Abbado, who inaugurated the opera season in 1979 in a staging that went down in history.
But also a title that - with the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine - has attracted some controversy, including the request of the Ukrainian consul in Milan Andrii Kartysh to change the title.
The theater's response was no.
And not only because the title was decided three years ago, but also in the belief that it is not "Putin propaganda" at all but a denunciation of the cruelty of power to which the innocent are victims.
"The world needs more art not less. And Musorgksij has unmasked the cruelty of power. This is why it is right to do it now" underlined director Kaspar Holten, former director of the Royal Opera House in London.
"It's a wonderful show. Come and see it" exhorted the superintendent Dominique Meyer, who underlined the "concrete" closeness of the Scala to the Ukrainian population for whom he organized a concert that raised 380 thousand euros, welcomed in the dance school of the Academy group of pupils from the Kiev school and asked Gergiev for a statement in which he hoped for a peaceful solution.
"We were the first to do it," she claimed.
Boris - who here presents an important cast led by bass Ildar Abdrazakov - "was too new a masterpiece to be accepted by the St. Petersburg theater commission" underlined Chailly, who worked with the orchestra "to underline the modernity of the symphonic narration".
So the wait is for December 7, when the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella and the President of the European Commission Ursula vonder Leyen will be present in the theater to see Boris.
But the show can also be seen on TV (indirectly on Rai1) and in 32 different places in Milan.
(HANDLE).