The curtain is about to go up on the refurbished La Scala, writes Paddy Agnew.
Next Tuesday night, Il Teatro alla Scala in Milan, often modestly referred to as the world's greatest opera house, reopens for business. After a three-year break and a €61 million renovation, the magical "La Scala" looks ready to return to the fray meaner, lighter, safer and - this is the important bit - sounding better than ever before.
No one needs to have lived long in Italy to understand that the process of renovation or restauro tends to arouse fierce passions. If you set about refurbishing a great cultural icon such as La Scala, there will always be people who object to your methods.
So it was with the refurbishing of La Scala which became the subject of legal action by environmentalists concerned that the renovation would respect the true nature of the great opera house, built for the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa by the neo-classical architect Giuseppe Piermarini in 1778. In the end, however, the environmentalists lost out in court. In the end, too, even they may have to acknowledge the most heretical of all considerations. Namely, that the new look La Scala sounds better than ever.
Maestro Ricardo Muti, La Scala's musical director and the man who will conduct Tuesday night's gala performance of Antonio Salieri's opera, Europa Riconosciuta, reportedly gave an enthusiastic, upbeat assessment of the new acoustic after his first orchestral rehearsal two weeks ago. At the end of a 40-minute rehearsal, Muti put down his baton and applauded warmly by way of appreciation. Europa Riconosciuta, incidentally, has been picked since it was the work with which the theatre originally opened in 1778.
The ghosts of the immortals - Verdi, Puccini, Toscanini, Callas, Di Stefano et al - artists whose names will forever be associated with La Scala can rest easy. Or so we are assured by Muti and the renovation team. Of course, the real test will come on Tuesday night when the opera company performs in front of a 2,000-plus capacity audience. All the indications suggest, though, that the re-opening first night will be a trionfo annunciato.
Writing in Milan-based daily Corriere Della Sera this week, music critic Paolo Isotta recalled how, in the years prior to this renovation, La Scala had taken on a rather run-down look. Worst of all, wrote Isotta, the acoustics were inferior to the Teatro Degli Arcimboldi, La Scala's temporary home for the last three years in the city suburbs.
All is now changed. No longer will singers opt to stand at a specific point on the stage, as Maria Callas and many others did, in the belief that only that position afforded the best acoustic.
Under acoustics expert and engineer Higini Arau, a series of significant, sound-muffling obstacles built into the old Scala have been removed. For a start, since 1943 the auditorium had sat on a bed of wartime debris. The rubble has been removed, leaving the new auditorium with below-floor resonance. The new multi-layered wooden parquet, sprung floor, creates, according to critic Isotta, a positively "vibrant" acoustic.
Milan's mayor, Gabriele Albertini, and the project architect, Mario Botta, have argued consistently that this renovation has not only preserved the structure of the stage and spectator sections but has attempted to respect the spirit and traditional feel of the house. The aficionados will give their judgment on Tuesday night when some of them might lament the passing of the standing-room only area, replaced by seats.
Stage designers and set-builders, however, are unlikely to complain about the 190-foot tall "stage tower", to the side of the main stage. Designed to move scenery both horizontally and vertically, this tower will make it possible for La Scala to perform three different "shows" on the same day - in other words, generate more revenue.
Needless to say, the renovation work has been extremely complex, involving not just the auditorium, stage and stage tower but new administrative offices, rehearsal rooms and dressing rooms for the orchestra, chorus and ballet. For example, it has been calculated that the new-look La Scala required more than 800 km of electric wiring and four km of skirting boards.
Notwithstanding this, the project has respected its original time schedule and even if it did run over budget at €61 million (the original estimate was €50 million), it still represents a remarkable achievement by the standards of modern Italy.
Inevitably, there will be a last gasp rush to be ready for Tuesday, which is St Ambrose's Day, feast of Milan city's patron saint and the traditional opening night for La Scala. This is one occasion, however, when we can safely predict that it "will be all right on the night".