Unsurprisingly, the tkts for Angela Gheorghiu's (well, if she shows up, if she doesn't it will be Elena Mosuc's and Irina Lungu's) La Traviata at La Scala have sold out in less than an hour this morning, starting 9AM Milan time. Even worse, the Teatro alla Scala website crashed horribly and was unreachable, making it impossible for opera lovers who wanted a ticket to even purchase one.
Who's riding the lollerskates then? The infamous La Scala ticket scalpers -- they have unsurprisingly and gleefully made a killing -- their 204 euro tickets will now be sold for much more than that, even double. If Angela is there, of course.
Note to our dear readers who are stuffing Opera Chic's email box with anti-Scala flames: if you really want to see the show, either accept the scalpers murderous prices or book your visit to Milan with one of the city's 5-star hotels -- the concierge desks are always able to find tickets. Not really mysteriously, either -- they enjoy a very good relationship with the theater, after all.
You think this sucks? We wish we could help, but you're better-off telling la Scala what you think.
Just to make this clearer to our non-Milanese readers: it's interesting to see how so many scalpers -- we could already recognize them all after a couple months of La Scala-going... it's always the same middle aged gentlemen...funny how la Scala still doesn't recognize them -- whip out of their pockets the infamous "accordion". The accordion being the strange strips of 12 or 15 tickets all still attached to each other. What makes this sight very strange is that you and I (where "you and I" means "regular, non-scalper person") can only buy 2 tickets maximum during a single transaction. How these gentlemen manage to get an entire "accordion" is, frankly beyond Opera Chic.
Well, no, not beyond us, but it'd be unwise to point that out here, since our legal fund's resources are somewhat limited.
Anyway: the dubious legality of it all does not seem to bother La Scala's management much, alas.
After all, it's only the non-bloated-with-cash serious opera lovers who -- ahem -- pay the price. Minor local politicians and their friends, corporate sponsors, unknown "VIPs", TV skanks, and silicon-injected escorts always have their nice platea -- or excellent center palchi -- tickets anyway. And, you know, for free.
The good news is, Candide tickets are still there -- all of them, as we predicted. Gawd, what a terrible, terrible box office bomb -- after all that free worldwide publicity to boot!
Poor Lenny.