OK; Stéphane Lissner has announced his plan for the future: his 5-year plan to, in his words, "turn La Scala into, again, the Number One opera house in the world" (The code is transparent. Translation: Muti dragged the theatre down, here's how I'll fix things").
2007-2008
Next season, La Scala will stage 12 operas (9 new productions, among them Prokofiev's The Gambler conducted by Barenboim (OMG YES!), Tosca conducted by Barenboim and directed by Jean Luc Bondy, L’elisir d’amore with Villazon-Neterbko). Pierre Boulez will inaugurate next year's Symphony season. La Prima of 12/7/2007 will be, as already announced, Barenboim's Tristan.
2008-2009
La Prima of 12-7-2008: Don Carlo, conducted by Daniele Gatti, Stéphane Braunschweig director.
Verdi & Wagner turn 200
Lissner is really putting a lot of care into the planning of 2013 because it's the Verdi/Wagner bicentennial. In 2013, Verdi's Trilogia Popolare will happen.
Monteverdi Trilogy
Orfeo in September 2009, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria in 2010, and L’incoronazione di Poppea in 2011, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini (ed: zzzzzzzzzzzzzz), directed by Bob Wilson (yay!). The idea is to cast big names (still unknown together with young students from Accademia della Scala). Cool, but had Muti decided for the same Monteverdi orgy, he'd have been stoned by the same h8rz who know will all be like, yay Monteverdi.
Japan Tour
In 2009, La Scala goes to Japan: Gatti's Don Carlo, and Aida conducted by Barenboim.
La Scala's Ring
The first integral Ring since Furtwaengler's in 1950, (Ben Heppner has already been cast) will be conducted by Daniel Barenboim, director Klaus-Michael Grüber, sets by Anselm Kiefer. Two operas in 2010, Rheingold in June, Die Walküre as La Prima on 12/7/2010. Then, in 2012: Sigfried in January, Götterdämmerung for la Prima in 12/7/2012.
Other Planz
Lissner sez he's trying to talk Simon Rattle into coming here to conduct an opera, and, heh, he's supposedly trying to woo back Claudio Abbado (who of course hasn't come back to La Scala since the orchestra fired him in 1986, just like they did 19 years later to Riccardo Muti and in the 1950s to poor Victor de Sabata). Abbado conducting again at la Scala is about as likely as George W. Bush converting to Islam and joining NARAL, but we'll see. A nice little cloud of vaporware is always de rigueur, n'est pas?
