MILAN \u2014 Milan\u2019s storied Teatro alla Scala celebrates its gala season premiere Sunday with a Russian opera for the second time since Moscow\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. But this year, instead of drawing protests for showcasing the invader\u2019s culture, a flash mob will demonstrate for peace.<\/p>\n
La Scala\u2019s music director Riccardo Chailly will conduct Dmitry Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth of Mtsensk\u201d for the gala season opener that draws luminaries from culture, business and politics for one of the most anticipated events of the European cultural calendar. <\/p>\n
Shostakovich’s 1934 opera highlights the condition of women in Stalin\u2019s Soviet Union, and was blacklisted just days after the communist leader saw a performance in 1936, the threshold year of his campaign of political repression known as the Great Purge.<\/p>\n
The Italian left-wing party +Europa announced a demonstration outside the theater as dignitaries arrive \u201cto draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by Putin\u2019s Russia, and to support the Ukrainian people.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
The party underlined that Shostakovich’s opera exposes the abuse of power and the role of personal resistance.<\/p>\n
Due to security concerns, authorities moved the protest from the square facing La Scala, to another behind City Hall.<\/p>\n
Shostakovich\u2019s journey to La Scala gala premiere<\/p>\n
Chailly began working with stage director Vasily Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the 2022 gala season premiere of the Russian opera \u201cBoris Godunov,\u201d which was attended by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom separated Russia\u2019s politicians from its culture.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Soprano Sara Jakubiak has her makeup done ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at La Scala Opera House in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. Credit: AP\/Antonio Calanni<\/p>\n
But outside the Godunov premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture during a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture. The Ukrainian community did not announce any separate protests this year.<\/p>\n
Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth,\u2019 for only the fourth time in La Scala’s history \u201ca must.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,\u2019\u2019 Chailly told a news conference last month. <\/p>\n
La Scala\u2019s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cLady Macbeth\u201d and Modest Mussorgsky\u2019s \u201cBoris Godunov.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
External view of Teatro all Scala ahead of the dress rehearsal of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. Credit: AP\/Antonio Calanni<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,\u2019\u2019 Ortombina said on the sidelines of the press conference. \u201cShostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin’s own.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
An American soprano makes her La Scala Debut<\/p>\n
American soprano Sara Jakubiak is making her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she dies. It\u2019s the second time Jakubiak has sung it, after performances in Barcelona, and she said the role is full of challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I\u2019m a murderess, that I\u2019m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,\u2019\u2019 Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. \u201cYou go, \u2018Oh my gosh, how will I do this?\u2019 But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we\u2019re just going to go for the ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was \u201csqueezing\u201d Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer\u2019s intent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhenever I prepare a role, it\u2019s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,” she said. \u201cFirst, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we\u2019re actually somewhat similar in that regard.”<\/p>\n
Stage direction highlights Stalin’s end<\/p>\n
Barkhatov, who has a flourishing international career, called the choice of \u201cLady Macbeth,\u201d \u201cvery brave and exciting.\u201d <\/p>\n
Barkhatov’s stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin\u2019s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.<\/p>\n
For Barkhatov, Stalin\u2019s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place.<\/p>\n
Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as \u201ca weird \u2026 breakthrough to happiness and freedom.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,\u2019\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Milan\u2019s storied Teatro alla Scala celebrates its gala season premiere Sunday with a Russian opera for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":430980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[51353,1582,276,171,2961,224,5337,10190],"class_list":{"0":"post-430979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ap-a-wire","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115678368777570526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}