La Scala Aida always brings the dramz! Alagnagate '06!
Last night's Aida premiere at La Scala cut divisions among the theater's loggione and orchestra. Franco Zeffirelli's 49-year-old Aida was put back into rotation in a nod to the Italian director's long La Scala legacy -- it had originally premiered in 1963.
After the the second act intermission, conductor Omer Meir Wellber was greeted with boos from the loggione as he took the podium, although an intrepid voice rang out in his defence: "It's not the conductor's fault, but the fault of an unprofessional orchestra."
During the second intermission, one of the orchestra members came into the lobby to defend the orchestra's work. He argued in front of journalists that, to the contrary, the orchestra helped out the conductor a lot and even tried to cover some of the vocal problems of the singers -- Oksana Dyka sang Aida, Marianne Cornet was Amneris and Jorge De Leon was Radames.
Four hours later, three curtain calls of "light, lukewarm applause" set the backdrop for a shout from the loggione that said, "Shame on you guys!"
La Scala 69'd Zeffirelli's 2006 disco fever, Bolle-thonged Aida production that was made famous for Alagna's Radames mid-aria walk-off after a boo was fired from the loggione. Good times.