BREAKING NEWS Teatro alla Scala issued tonight a written apology on the theatre's official website (Italian language only) after the insanity of this morning's server meltdown we reported here -- prospective buyers who logged on at 9AM Milan time to buy their tickets haven't simply been able to connect to la Scala's website. The Charta.it website where the tickets are also on sale had the same issues, apparently, making all but impossible to buy tickets for Angela Gheorghiu's Traviata (it's Angela's if she shows up of course -- she's been booked for 6 performances, most people here doubt she'll fulfill her commitment). Somehow, the tickets have been sold out anyway -- somebody must have been especially lucky.
Anyway, here's a translation of key parts of the apology:
TRAVIATA TICKETS
Dear Guests, Teatro alla Scala apologizes for the troubles following the irregular availabilty of the websites where tickets were sold.
On May 4, 2007, at 9AM, the bid for the Traviata tickets started and from 930 to 953 technical issues have locked up the network.
The web pages on the Charta website -- la Scala's partner -- have been hit by 53,000 visitors. La Scala's official website has also experienced similar connection problems, due to a spike in traffic: in those hours, about 90,000 people have tried to connect to one or both websites.
Then, the apology mentions generic promises of Charta and Scala's web teams working to improve their servers, warning that "no massive improvement of tech support will be able anyway to withstand such high peaks of traffic". And in the summer a call center will be made available to buyers, too.
(click image for full-size)
We also hear -- but we don't know fo' sho -- that General Manager Stéphane Lissner is rumored to be responsible for the server trouble: he was in his office, simultaneously playing online Halo with his Limited Edition Toscanini Xbox360, discussing changes to Candide's script with director Robert Carsen via Skype (budget cuts, you know), and selling on eBay his huge stockpiles of Scala memorabilia raided from the theatre's basement: among them Giuseppe Verdi's hand-crank beard trimmer, Claudio Abbado's old comicbooks collection (strangely, he's a Hulk fan), Maria Callas's jockstrap, a big tub of Victor De Sabata's rare whale-oil-based hair pomade, Piero Cappuccilli's soccer cleats and Riccardo Muti's old Run DMC CDs. AAA+++ would do business again! (Slow shipping, love the hand crank contraption tho!) +++ *server crashes again*