Italy's fiercely-feared opera critic, Paolo Isotta of Corriere della Sera, trashed the Barenboim-anointed young conductor, Omer Wellber, and most of the singers of La Scala's "new" Aida in the culture pages today.
He waxed poetic about the sets/costumes of the late Lila De Nobili, whose last work he saw in 1973 in Visconti's direction for Manon Lescaut at the Spoleto Festival, and then about Zeffirelli's 1963 production that La Scala rolled-out of its archives for last week's premiere.
In the review, he spells Omer Wellber's last name as "Wellberg" (Isotta literally gives no f**k!) and says that if he was a musician in the orchestra, he'd refuse to play for "Wellberg", too (opening night brought an orchestra member into the lobby during the second intermission on defense). Isotta found Wellberg's Verdi "confused" and said that the singers, aside from Marianne Cornetti as Amernis, were tragic.
