Description of the attraction
La Scala is a world famous opera house in Milan. It was inaugurated in August 1778 and was originally called Nuovo Reggio Ducale Teatro alla Scala. The first production on the stage of the theater was "Recognized Europe" by Antonio Salieri. Over the past 200 years, almost all of Italy's great opera singers and a huge number of celebrities from all over the world have performed on the La Scala stage. Today La Scala is considered one of the leading opera and ballet theaters in the world. The season in the theater traditionally begins on December 7 - the Day of St. Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan.
The Teatro alla Scala Museum, which can be accessed through the theater foyer, houses a collection of paintings, sketches, statues, costumes and other exhibits related to the history of theater and opera in general.
In 1776, a terrible fire destroyed the Teatro Reggio Ducale in Milan. Immediately after that, a group of wealthy citizens, who had their own boxes in the theater, wrote a letter to the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria asking him to build a new theater to replace the burnt one. The neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini worked on the project for the new building, but his first project was rejected. Only some time later, Empress Maria Theresia approved the somewhat modified idea of the architect.
The new theater was built on the site of the church of Santa Maria alla Scala - hence its modern name. For 2 years, architects Giuseppe Piermarini, Pietro Nosetti and Antonio and Giuseppe Fe worked on the construction of the building. New La Scala accommodated over 3 thousand spectators, and its stage was already one of the largest in Italy (16, 15 mx 20, 4 mx 26 m). The costs of building the theater were offset by the sale of boxes, which were richly decorated by the owners (one of the first, for example, was Stendhal). Soon La Scala became a meeting place for the noble and wealthy inhabitants of Milan, but less wealthy spectators could also attend the theater - a so-called "lodge" was provided for them. Like most theaters of the time, La Scala also had a casino, with players housed in the lobby.
Initially, La Scala was lit by more than a thousand oil lamps, and in case of fire, several rooms of the building were filled with hundreds of sump pumps. Subsequently, oil lamps were replaced by gas ones, and those, in turn, by electric ones in 1883.
In 1907, the building of La Scala was restored, and the number of seats decreased slightly - to 2800. During the Second World War, the theater was seriously damaged by air strikes, but already in 1946 it was restored and reopened. The first post-war production was a concert under the direction of Arturo Toscanini, a student and colleague of the greats Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini.
