La Scala opens season with applause for "Tristan"
MILAN (Reuters) - La Scala's performance of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" drew a 20-minute applause on the opening night of the opera house's new season, which attracted statesmen, bankers, and businessmen from as far away as Qatar.
After more than five hours of the tragic story of the two young lovers, conductor Daniel Barenboim joined the singers and musicians on stage to bow to cheers of "Bravo!" from the audience late on Friday.
Bouquets of flowers rained upon German mezzosoprano Waltraud Meier, who played Isolde alongside British tenor Ian Storey in his role as Tristan.
"I was enchanted by the maestro's interpretation (of Wagner)" said Gianni Letta, a close aide to former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "He understands the spirit of Wagner."
It was Barenboim's first opening night at La Scala since becoming the main guest conductor at the opera house.
It was also the first time that the orchestra had played the demanding opera in nearly 30 years.
"Tristan" is considered one of Wagner's most important works because of the musical innovations he employed.
An expert in the 19th-century German composer's work, Barenboim said he was "very happy" how the orchestra had played the three-act opera.
"They played it as if they had been playing it all their lives," he told reporters.
But some audience members criticised the minimalist sets by Richard Peduzzi. Vittorio Sgarbi, the city's outspoken cultural adviser, said they had "violated" Wagner's music.
PRESERVE OF THE ELITE
With tickets costing up to 2,000 euros ($2,900) apiece, the annual gala event is seen as the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful, with the attending VIPs nearly as important as the performance itself.
Before the performance, hundreds of bystanders watched behind metal barriers as Italian President Giorgio Napolitano arrived with his peers from Greece, Germany and Austria.
Under the glare of television cameras, the heads of Italy's biggest banks, UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, mingled with hundreds of others in resplendent dress in the chandeliered foyer.
Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, who helped set up the pan-Arab television news channel Al Jazeera, also attended.
Security was tight inside as well as out.
Police wandered on horseback in front of the neoclassical opera house, while other officers with riot helmets stood in a nearby piazza in the historic heart of Milan.
In the distance, union workers staged a demonstration, calling for a minute of silence in a show of respect for three workers who died in a steel plant fire earlier this week.
The orchestra heeded their call before picking up their instruments and playing the first notes.
(Reporting by Gilles Castonguay and Ilaria Polleschi, editing by Dominic Evans)
