After more than a year of shutdown, museums, theaters and other cultural venues intend to catch up this summer and compete in imagination. After the Louvre's decision to give concerts and film screenings in its square courtyard, another internationally renowned cultural institution has chosen to develop its programming outside the walls. La Scala in Milan will venture into the Italian city, in order to offer a series of free concerts in different emblematic places of the metropolis of northern Italy. "
It's a signal of recovery, we are going to meet the public, because opera, music and ballet are for everyone
," Dominique Meyer, director of La Scala, told the press on Tuesday. since mid-2020.
From July 11 to 14, the orchestra, choir and ballet of the prestigious theater will perform in 18 concerts by the Philharmonic, the ballet and the women's choir. Vivaldi, Donizetti, Brahms, Bach or even Rachmaninoff: all tastes will be present during these four evenings of festivities in the four corners of the city. The events will take place at the Villa Simonetta, a Renaissance building recognized for its remarkable acoustic properties, but also at the Abbey of Chiaravalle, founded in 1135, at the Villa Mirabello, at the Bagni Misteriosi or at the Spirit of Milan.
The common thread of all these concerts will be the tribute paid to the great Argentinian bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla, who revolutionized the tango by opening it up to jazz and classical in the 70s and 80s, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.
On July 14, the event will end on a high note with an open day for the Italian stage at La Scala, with Verdi, Rossini and Puccini on the program.
Reservations will be open from July 3 on the La Scala website.
To read also: La Scala in Milan reopens this evening after six months of silence and promises "tears of happiness"
The director Dominique Meyer hopes to find there the spirit of the Fête de la Musique launched in 1982 by the former French Minister of Culture Jack Lang, of which he was the advisor, because "
it is a question of arousing a little musical emotions. everywhere, openly, close to the population
”. “
Go and meet the spectators instead of waiting for them to come to the theater, people who would not go to La Scala in normal times, either because they are afraid of the price, or because they are afraid of the place,
”he told AFP. "
It's always the first step that counts, so here it is La Scala that takes the first step,
" he enthusiastically said.
"
We open our doors, itis an exercise in cultural democracy
», He continued. In the same vein, La Scala has decided to revise downward the prices of certain subscriptions for the next season. After six months of silence due to the coronavirus, La Scala had found its audience on May 10, with a concert conducted by its musical director Riccardo Chailly, followed by another the next day under the baton of Riccardo Muti. According to Dominique Meyer, "
we feel that there is a great desire to return to the theater, the first concerts were full, given the limitation of the capacity
" of the hall, which went from 500 to 700 spectators, against 2,000. before the pandemic.
