Lluís Pasqual’s solemn staging of Don Carlo, one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most complex operas, did not satisfy the severe audience of the Milanese temple of lyric when it debuted. The theater dedicated 12 minutes of ovation for the first opera directed by a Spaniard that opens the La Scala season on the night of Saint Ambrose, patron saint of Milan, an event marked in red on the calendar for singing lovers from around the world .
The vast majority of attendees applauded enthusiastically, although some boos were also heard when the Catalan director came out to greet the Catalan director from the dreaded last boxes, where the loggionisti are located, the biggest fans of La Scala who queue for hours to get one of the most affordable tickets.
The Milanese welcomed his interpretation of the Verdian capolavoro, despite the fact that during the intermissions between the public and the critics there were some complaints about a certain stagnation in the scene, appealing to the standards of the 21st century. But in the end the theater did not skimp on applause, especially for the stars, a majestic Anna Netrebko or Michele Pertusi, in the role of the monarch, who suffered a voice problem in the middle of the performance but decided to continue anyway.
With Riccardo Chailly leading the orchestra and other acclaimed voices of the moment such as Luca Salsi or Elina Garanca, La Scala was last night the home of Verdi’s libretto on the fictional story, adapted from Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy, which tells of the dispute between the King Philip II and his son, Prince Don Carlo, for the heart of the same woman, the beautiful Isabel de Valois.
Verdi’s third French opera, one of the most performed in the Milanese theater (more than 200 times since 1868), follows the black legend about the obscurantist Spain of the Golden Age, plotted by its enemies, but Pasqual challenges this stigma by presenting a Spain grandiose, a background to tell some of the most recurring themes in Verdi, such as the conflict between a dominant father and an idealistic son, unattainable love or the dispute between heavenly and worldly power.
The characters do dress in black, the predominant color at the Habsburg court, but because it was the most precious of the silks of the time. The director of Reus, National Theater Award winner, wanted to transfer the closedness of the Spanish Inquisition to the stage with a “perfume of incense” that referred to the ecclesiastical atmosphere that dominates all the threads of a story about the struggle between the monarchy and the Church. Another key element of the montage is a large alabaster tower, the material that prevails in the scene, discovered by Pasqual during a pandemic trip to Castilla, in the Collegiate Church of Santa María la Mayor in the town of Toro.
It was not the first opera that Pasqual directed at La Scala, where he already made Gianni Schicchi in 1996 and La donna del lago in 2011. And nor was it the first opera directed by a Catalan this fall at the Milanese opera house, since Àlex Ollé ended to the 2022-2023 lyrical season with a new production of L’amore dei tre re. But it was the first time that a Spaniard opened the La Scala Prima, one of the most prominent events on the Italian cultural scene, which is usually attended by the country’s highest authorities, although on this occasion they were not even the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, due to scheduling problems, nor the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, as they did last year. The controversy reached the boxes, where the president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, known for having been an admirer of Mussolini, was present. “Long live anti-fascist Italy!” cried one attendee.
Among the well-known faces, in addition to the Italian and Milanese political representation, were the singer Patti Smith – a regular at La Scala –, the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, the soprano Raina Kabaivanska and the Italian dancer Roberto Bolle. And from home, the thousands of Italians who followed her on the small screen. Italy, the country that invented opera, is also the place where the public channel broadcasts the serata with great success among viewers. Last year alone, one and a half million people saw it.
