There green revolution launched in unsuspecting times is already bearing fruit: in 2022, the Staircase consumed 25% less electricity than the previous year. The economic scenarios which in recent months had suggested a 2023 of tears and blood seem to have been overcome by more optimistic forecasts for the second half of the year. And the encouraging fill rate of the theater bodes well for the near future.
Given these premises, however, the unknown factor remains linked to the impact of the international situation on the raw material costs. Just as the announcements of cuts by the Municipality and the Region must be taken into due consideration: if those hypothesized for 2022 have finally returned, a decisive decision should arrive in 2023 scissor by public bodies to funds for culture. Because of this, Superintendent Dominique Meyerwho has always considered prudence to be one of the best qualities of a good administrator and who has no intention of interrupting Piermarini’s line of balanced or slightly surplus budgets (also to ensure his reconfirmation at the top of the theater), has decided to start one spending reviews also on the artistic front, so as to shelter the accounts of the temple of opera from any negative conjunctures.
The decision, matured in recent weeks and finalized yesterday, was born from this need postpone for two years, in agreement with the choreographer John Neumeier, the new production for the ballet Aspects of Nijinsky: initially scheduled for November 2023, the show, which is particularly expensive, will be staged in 2025. “To keep the link between La Scala and the great master alive – reads a note from via Filodrammatici – dance director Manuel Legris however, he wanted to program one of his masterpieces also during the 2023-2024 season”, with the resumption of La Dame aux camélias, who will return to the Piermarini “seven years after his last performances”.
Aspects of Nijinsky’s place as the concluding title of the current station will be taken by Onegin by John Cranko, “in homage and as a tribute to the great choreographer in the year that marks the fiftieth anniversary of his untimely death”. The dates remain unchanged, from 5 to 25 November 2023: the star will be on stage on 5, 8, 15 and 17 Roberto Bolle; on the podium Simon Hewwtt, “who inaugurates his first collaboration with the corps de ballet della Scala”. According to reports, the squeeze on costs will also affect new productions of the opera season.