There are 9 new productions at La Scala (don’t tell the Met)
mainA really interesting lineup next season at La Scala, announced today.
Riccardo Chailly opens with Verdi’s Attila, Davide Livermore directing, Abdrazakov in the title role. He will also take on the Italian première of the first version of Manon Lescaut, David Pountey, directing, with Maria Jose Siri.
Milan will see its first Korngold Die tote Stadt (Graham Vick, dir.) and Aegyptische Helena (Franz Welser-Möst, cond.).
Welser-Möst will also conduct Ariadne auf Naxos, with none other than Alexander Pereira making his La Scala debut as Haushofmeister. That chap could go far.
Bartoli returns in a new Giulio Cesare by Robert Carsen.
Two very young conductors get their first bite of the baton – Michele Gamba (ex-Pappano and Barenboim assistant) for L’elisir d’amore (Feola, Grigolo) and Lorenzo Viotti in the symphonic season.
You can see the full lineup at Gramilano here.
The 4th or 5th piece slamming the Met for having too few new productions next year. Yes, we get it.
Indeed, the schadenfreude at the MET is unmissable.
I thought bigger was better only in the US? Another myth busted…
We all know that singers can only do their best in a new production, no??
Far less seats to fill per night-3800 as opposed to 2030.
Obviously La Scala can afford so many new productions. The Met can not. The real question is: why the Met’s finances are in such dire straits?
Every time the Met replaces a 20 year-old traditional production with something that tries to be novel and innovative, everyone from subscribers to critics go ballistic.
Gelb is more likely to get fired over all of the Zeffirelli productions that he rightfully dumped than Levine.
So it’s no wonder that there are so few new productions at the Met.
The reason there are so few new productions next season is that they are doing a revival of the Ring cycle. Peter Gelb stated this when the 2018-2019 season was announced.
The Ring cycle production, by Robert Lepage, requires an enormous amount of rehearsal time, which would not have been possible if there were new productions going on around it. There is no big mystery to this, just practical planning by the Met.
I am not a fan of Peter Gelb, but in all fairness let us ask how much state subsidy does the Met get compared to what La Scala gets?