Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.With tickets costing up to €3,200 and the event broadcast live on national television, there is every reason to expect the opening night of La Scala will be an evening of stellar opera. In a year when global conflicts have dominated headlines, the stage was set for a production that also felt timely. Verdi’s La forza del destino fits the bill: a sweeping revenge epic set to the backdrop of the 18th-century wars in Spain and Italy. With its idealistic conscripts and atmosphere of enveloping destruction, this was surely a work that would resonate.War was certainly on the minds of those who participated in this year’s offstage drama. Before the audience of VIPs could push past paparazzi to take their seats — guests included operatic veterans Plácido Domingo and José Carreras — pro-Palestine demonstrators brought traffic in the centre of Milan to a halt. And the smattering of boos aimed at Russian soprano Anna Netrebko at the curtain call was presumably punishment for her refusal to condemn Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.Leo Muscato’s time-travelling staging, the first of this opera at La Scala in 25 years, sets each act in a war from a different era, to make the point that human destruction is eternal. The result is a disorienting mish-mash that fast forwards from what appears to be the war of the Austrian Succession of the libretto to a bombed-out cityscape finale that brings to mind contemporary Gaza or Lebanon.Muscato employs a revolving stage so that a succession of attractive scenes — moodily lit groves on a summer’s evening, candle-holding friars before an altar — can rotate into view. This stratagem allows for seamless transition into set numbers featuring the chorus (in rollicking form as peasants, servants and pilgrims) arranged on steps.However, the sequence of tableaus badly lacks dynamism and anything in the way of a compelling overarching idea, leaving the singers to offer deeper insights. Netrebko, while lacking vocal heft in some of her role’s bigger moments, drew in listeners with luminous, expressive singing, winning applause that far overshadowed the final boos. Brian Jagde, stepping in for an indisposed Jonas Kaufmann, was a thrillingly virile Don Alvaro armed with a powerful middle range and ringing top notes. Ludovic Tézier dominated proceedings as Don Carlo di Vargas, his rich baritone a joy to listen to.Further standouts included Vasilisa Berzhanskaya’s zealous Preziosilla, Alexander Vinogradov’s solemn Padre Guardiano and Carlo Bosi’s farcical Trabuco. Riccardo Chailly conducted a clean and well-paced reading of the version of the score Verdi wrote for La Scala in 1869 — tight and punchy in belligerent outbursts and spaciously dramatic where he needed to be. But the sheer importance and mass appeal of this operatic event does not lend itself to risk-taking onstage.★★★☆☆To January 2, teatroallascala.org
