La Scala may slow down in summer, but the show goes on

Those unlucky enough to be left behind foraged for food, pharmacies or the air-conditioned relief of the rare movie theater that had not closed for the summer.

Italy’s premier opera theater, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, used to take an extra-long bow, lowering its curtain in July only to raise it with the pomp and circumstance of its celebrated and celebrity-filled Dec. 7 premiere (there was always a fall concert season, but it is not the same thing).

The frenetic tempo of modern life has not spared Italy. Or La Scala, where the opera season has been considerably lengthened, particularly after a three-year high-tech upgrade 15 years ago.

“Things have changed from a few years ago, when there was a real pause, awaiting Dec. 7,” Stefania Cavallin, one of the theater’s three chief stage designers, said in an interview at the theater this month. “But then we began with a small fall season that became increasingly important. Now it’s a continuous cycle.”

Her production team — as well as other employees of La Scala — still gets a three-week break in August, she said. “But we already prepare the work that will go onstage when the theater reopens” in September, she added.

Nowadays, La Scala’s playbill has grown from the eight or nine operas staged in a typical season 20 years ago to around 15, of which nine or 10 are new or co-productions. Of the six ballets, about half are new, said Franco Malgrande, La Scala’s stage engineer. “It’s a very tight production,” and that translates into “a considerably greater offer for the public.”

Malgrande added that even when the season ended, around the third week of July, “it doesn’t mean our activity stops.” The rare period when the stage is free of sets, he added, “is when all the maintenance takes place, of the machinery and of the stage mechanics,” a round-the-clock endeavor because of the shorter summer break. Preparations then begin for the fall operas, usually the theater’s own productions (in September and October, Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and Donizetti’s “L’elisir d’amore.”)

La Scala did not become Italy’s most famed theater overnight. It worked for it.

In the 1950s, Malgrande said, it built its own external workshops for costume and set design and construction (previously, because they were mostly painted backdrops, opera sets were created in a large hall above the main auditorium). Now, the workshops occupy a 215,000-square-foot facility, the former Ansaldo steel plants in what was once an industrial area of Milan, and employ about 150 artisans.

“They work frenetically; it’s a factory,” Malgrande said cheerfully. From sets to designs to stage objects, “we can reproduce anything, any object in the world, old, new, ancient,” he said. And the in-house skills ensure that high-quality productions are passed on to new generations, who train inside the theater. “There’s a wealth of experience in La Scala,” he said.

Though Italy has 14 opera foundations, “no other theater has such structured workshops,” Cavallin echoed.

Over at the Ansaldo facility on a muggy afternoon this month, set builders were putting the finishing touches on a boat for “Le Corsaire” and crafting a believable Persian rug from stencils and paint for an upcoming production of “Julius Caesar,” while in another area, gigantic musical instruments for Salieri’s “Prima la musica e poi le parole,” part of a double bill with Woody Allen’s staging of Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi,” were works in progress.

The workshops will be active until the end of July before a short August hiatus.

“August is still a problem in Italy because many of our suppliers shut down, so it makes little sense for us to remain open,” Cavallin said.

A group of visitors gathered on the walkway above the main workshop. Guided tours are given twice a week.

In the costume department, Rita Citterio, who oversees the theater’s costume storage, gave a brief tour of her own: a showcase of historic costumes from past productions of operas on this year’s playbill, including those from a 1954-55 “L’elisir d’amore” by Franco Zeffirelli and Gabriella Pescucci’s costumes for the 1997-98 “Manon Lescaut.” Next season, Dolce & Gabbana will debut as costume designers at La Scala for Verdi’s “Ballo in Maschera.”

In its warehouse, La Scala has about 60,000 costumes dating from 1911. Each year, 3,000 to 4,000 more are added. “Space is a big problem,” Citterio said, laughing. “When we first came here, I never imagined we’d run out of room, but since the seasons have gotten longer it’s changed a lot.”

La Scala’s seamstresses split their skill sets. Some work on and behind the stage, while others create the costumes, which have their own challenges.

“We generally say that one opera is better than 100 ballets, which are very complicated from the point of view of the costume, because clearly the ballet dancer uses the costume, it can’t get in the way of movement,” said Cinzia Rosselli, head of dressmaking. “For an opera singer, the most important thing is the throat and the chest area; for a dancer it’s all important, from the tip of their big toe to the top of their head.”

The ballet company has the most demanding summer schedule, using the days off to tour. This August it will travel to Beijing, with La Scala’s own productions of “Giselle” and “Le Corsaire.”

“They are two opposite productions; one presents the company in its virtuosity and brilliance, and ‘Giselle’ is romantic, part of tradition,” said the ballet director, Frédéric Olivieri.

As he spoke, stagehands were packing up crates with sets, costumes, lighting, makeup and other needs for the two productions, which would head to Beijing by ship, then by train.

A ballet master would also head there ahead of the company to rehearse with local children — students at a Chinese dance academy — for one of the scenes in “Le Corsaire.” “Touring is interesting because there is always a cultural exchange,” Olivieri said.

Back in Milan, the 2019-20 ballet season will be inaugurated with a coproduction with the Vienna State Ballet of “Sylvia,” choreographed by its director, Manuel Legris. Olivieri was enthusiastic: “It’s very rare to add a new classical ballet to the repertoire.”

In the heat of August, as the stagehands work backstage, another crew will be working in the auditorium, where the gigantic chandelier will be lowered from the ceiling, as it is every year, to be cleaned. This summer, work will begin to improve the acoustics of La Scala’s boxes, removing the padding that is currently on the walls to apply tapestry directly to the drywall. The first order will be tackled this year, the first of a three-year project.

And then, even as operas and ballets rotate on the calendar, La Scala will prepare for its Dec. 7 premiere.

“It remains an opening in grand style; for anyone who works at La Scala it remains the key date, it is untouchable,” said Cavallin, the stage designer.

“It is a very heartfelt occasion,” Malgrande chimed in.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

La Scala may slow down in summer, but the show goes on

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