Opera Chic

Beethoven's Ninth & a La Verdi Champagne Magnum, Always

Last night, OC Götterfunken on with la Verdi at its annual Concerto di Capodanno to pre-ring in the New Year, Oppan Beethoven style. <-- topical humor -- don't shoot the messenger (unless the message said to shoot the messenger then kindly give us a five-second gentlemen's agreement head start.)

Since 1999, Milan's young, roguish la Verdi orchestra, based in bohemian neighborhood Navigli's Auditorium di Milano, has been singing its bloated-from-Xmas a$$ off with Beethoven's fetish-inducing Ninth symphony.

What better message to megaphone into the New Year than Schiller's Ode An Die Freude poem of unity and brotherhood? Really, a perfectly-formed narrative before the final O Freunde kiss of death.

To bow 2013, la Verdi's MD Zhang Xian gave us a-buck-twenty-five of sterling tempi, grave tension and four great soloists, including another American girl living in Milan, soprano Laura Aikin, and Austrian bass Thomas Tatzl who probably declines invitations from Abercrombie's street team recruiters every time he treads the pavement. Yeah, we crushing. Haters fly away. Read more next week when OC reviews the performance officially for her Grazia.it column -- and in case you missed it, here's her La prima della Scala Wagner Lohengrin.

OC's rhapsodizes endlessly on Wilhelm Furtwängler's ethereal August 22, 1954 Lucerne Beethoven's Ninth with the Philharmonia and Schwarzkopf, Cavelti, Häfliger and Edelmann for good reason -- it's a chillingly sober reconciliation of a man who understood he was living on borrowed time and was grappling with his own mortality ("This time I had one foot in the other world," he had told his wife) -- so we've cued it up on the 'tubes -- all Gioia-scintilla-divina-e-bella-nata-nell'aura-elisia of it. Enjoy Brothers!

Rita Levi-Montalcini 1909-2012

In remembrance of OC's humble, elegant heroine, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel laureate, trailblazer in neurology and medical research and Italian Senator for life.

On Branagh's Flute

As Kenneth Branagh lifers, we pretty much loved his 2006 English-translation Zauberflöte, which lightened Mozart's last opera into a romantic comedy (despite blood-soaked WWI trenchs).

Through idiosyncratic casting, Joseph Kaiser as hero Tamino sets off on a dangerous journey to wife Amy Carson's Pamina, guided by charismatic Benjamin Jay Davis' Papageno and a star cameo by René Pape's Sarastro.

Sure, it's not the ROH's chilly David McVicar production with feisty Damrau, Roschmann, and Keenlyside's Aspergery hero or Ingmar Bergman's Swedish language classic (uncut version on the 'tubes here), but it's modern and bright.

With a lean box office release that excluded the USA and a DVD footprint that blacklisted North American Region 1'ers, its a temperamental beast, but youtube managed to hogtie Branagh's unicorn in two parts.

Merry Merry

OC wishes you a lovely holiday season and all the best for new year that takes you to all the places you've always dreamed about.

VF's 2012 Cultural Highlights

Vanity Fair rolls out its 2012 year-end recap and slips some cultural gems into the slideshow, including Valentino above, photographed by by Patrick Demarchelier at his NYC Ballet comeback from September 2012 that we wrote about here and here.

Below, homewrecker K-Stew and French ballerino Jérémie Bélingard of the Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, photographed by by Mario Testino.

Vanity Fair Italia's Coverboy Bolle

Straight from our fantasies onto print. Vanity Fair Italia's chosen the lethally-gorgeous, 37-year-old Italian primo ballerino for its December 2012 cover story although it's not like they have to actually put real words into the feature to sell the title but if you want, here's the text of "The effort of having to say 'I love you'".

The twitter junkie's put teasers on his twitter, naturally, which should hold us out until we hit up our favorite Largo Treves newstand.  

We Can Dance If We Want To [Actually, No. No You Can't]

La Scala's new production of the Sasha Waltz choreographed Roméo et Juliette can't catch a break. First Roberto Bolle's collaboration was axed and now opening night (which was supposed to bow La Scala's 2012-13 ballet season), originally scheduled for December 19, has been struck down, literally, by unions of the chorus and ballet company. The closest thing to describe our disappointment is this. <-- fail wail from The Price is Right.

Guest ballerini Aurélie Dupont and partner Hervé Moreau will still dance on December 28 & 29. Information for ticket credits and exchanges is here.

Oslo Opera House's Niiiiice Curtain

Thank you. I just had it hung. Los Angeles mixed media artist Pae White's mesmerizing, crumpled tinfoil curtain at the Oslo Opera House fractures the traditional red velvet curtain and kind of beats the pants off of Hockney's iPad-sketched textile for the Wiener Staatsoper (below). From this month's AD.

Style Magazine's Legends on the Podium: Michele Mariotti

Corriere della Sera's December Style Magazine grabs a piece of 33-year-old Italian conductor Michele Mariotti with a "Legends of the Podium" feature. The Urbino-born, Pesaro-educated conductor just closed La Traviata for Teatro di San Carlo's 2012-13 season opener with Book of Revelation-sized expressionism that made Verdi take off his top hat and punch a hole straight through. Here I am baby, signed, sealed, delivered. After the holidays, he takes his second bite of the Big Apple for a set-in-the-1960s-Las-Vegas-Rigoletto, opening on January 28 at The Metropolitan Opera. 

The principal director of Bologna's Teatro Comunale is eager to prove his worth independently from his father, Gianfranco Mariotti, intendant of the Rossini Opera Festival, in a country that equally treats famous offspring with morbid adoration and scoffed criticism.

"So what about family competition?" asks Corriere della Sera jouranlist Pierluigi Panza. "Only on the tennis courts," volleys Mariotti and continues, "Without being a hypocrite, I'll admit that it's been a privilidge to grow up in a theater house environment. But we don't choose who we want to be the kids of. Anyway this aspect was never a burden or a debatable point to for me. It's right to judge someone based on a level playing field, without these kinds of prejudices or age biases, without advantages or disadvantages."

Newleywed Mariotti recently put a ring on Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko, who he had met in 2010 while working on Rossini's Sigismondo. The local papers ran photos. -- if you look closely, you'll see VIP guests such as Juan Diego Florez and la Trappe. The couple live together near Bolgona and in his free time, Mariotti straps on his Air Jordans and plays basketball, tennis and he cooks with his wife.  

He references Mozart as a composer who can "move me [emotionally] and scare me. For now, I wouldn't conduct Don Giovanni because I don't feel like I'm ready. Let's just say that Rossini's in my DNA and Verdi I love for his theatrical capacity."

Starlight Starbright, Carmen Giannattasio Straight Outta Napoli

(Giannattasio in Alberta Ferretti dress and shoes. Hair/Make-up Mariano Sabbatelli. Photo Alessandro Sarno in Naples, Campania.)

Last night, La Traviata at Naples' Teatro di San Carlo ended its run, but we're still (sliiiightly) obsessed after checking it out. Turkish-Italian film director/screenwriter Ferzan Özpetek's new production (think: if Violetta kept an opulent mansion in Istanbul, parquet layered in rich Turkish carpets) was honored in opening the storied Neapolitan opera house's 2012-13 season on December 5.

Maestrino Michele Mariotti restored manuscript cuts (*wink* uncut *wink*) and presented an insanely-intricate score full of swing and butt-shaking rhythm. Insanity, really, to hear such ballsy flow in a traditional, historical setting. Give this kid a turntable and he'll do damage. 

Spotlight diva Carmen Giannattasio shook plaster from the walls and gold-leaf from the ceiling as an outrageously-juicy Violetta. Hurricane Carmen, a force of nature. Nevermind the fact that the opera house announced she was fighging a flu but would sing anyway. Hometown hero Carmen, born and raised in the mountains of Avellino (now living in London), returned to her native theater after the past year of singing at The Met (Leonora in Trovatore) and Covent Garden (Mimi in Bohème) to wide open arms. We discovered her in 2009, in Erminoe (just like Ceci, she attaches herself to rarer, unconventional compositions) and we wrote about her sultry, smoky, sexy, sassy presence and unique voice, blessedly more talented than hyped, for once, slamming back Rossini and Verdi in a way that makes us cross our fingers and hope that we've found the "proverbial precious truffle."

As a byproduct of Milan's Accadmia del Teatro alla Scala (1999 - 2001), an Operalia winner (in 2002) and racking a Gramophone Opera Award, sure, on paper, it seems like victories come easy for the Mediterranean firecracker.

But Giannattasio spoke candidly to Corriere del Mezzogiorno (not online) a few days before her high-profile season opening Violetta and shared a deeply personal struggle with her fans. Here it is in OC's translation:

"Thanks to a recent article that was written about my combination of vocal skill coupled with my charisma, I've been compared to a top pop idol. But in reality, I really don't think that I match the standards of a pop model. Actually, I'd define myself as a "trop model", size 38 [that's a "medium" size 4-6 in USA conversions], a person who likes fashion, likes to have an original look, but who is also careful of my physical form, especially considering my weakness for salty foods like "salsicce e friarielli" [sausages fried with a type of green vegetable, similar to broccoli rabe, that you find in Naples], pizza and sfogliatelle [insanely-delicious ricotta-filled, shell-shaped fried pastries typical to the region, which OC ate a’plenty].

The problem, unfortunately, is that on stage, they always want you to be forever young, lean, agile and beautiful. Therefore, there are many sacrifices, but the key is that you must do it without arriving at a fevered pitch, a paroxysm, like the same kind that unfortunately often grips the world of fashion.

I have to be sincerely honest -- in fact, it's the first time that I’ve ever come out publically -- starting in my 20s, and up until about 4-5 years ago, right in the middle of my career's big trajectory, I struggled with bulimia, which at times, relapsed. Singing and my voice waere the only things that saved me: Aside from the weight loss, I was losing my voice. It was then that I realized that I risked to lose everything.

And this is why I'm outing it. I want to make an appeal to all the girls and women out there: To stay fit is, of course, important, but like everything, you need to find equilibrium. Balance. It's better to cut out the junk food from your diet and walk a little bit more. Listen, it's not a coincidence that fashion designer Alberta Ferretti thought of me to model the dresses that she designs for curvier women. I mean, these are the kind of dresses that you can wear without worrying about indulging in a tasty sfogliatella! [seriously, sfogliatella straight outta Naples are to die for]."

Courageous, really, to speak about something that doesn't get any airtime in Italy. Easting disorders aren't as rampant here as they are in the USA, but it's simply not talked about.

By the way, those photos above and below come from a recent photoshoot that Giannattasio did with Italian fashion icon, Alberta Ferretti. Giannattasio modeled the collections in the San Carlo opera house,, found on OC's computer here: C:\Users\Opera Chic\Documents\My Pictures\Opera Divas\Divas That Will Cut You\Carmen_Giannattasio.jpg. Personally, we think of Giannattasio as a young Charlotte Rampling photographed by Peter Lindbergh.

And what about that Violetta in San Carlo? Slammed it! The Financial Times was there and said: "Carmen Giannattasio is singing with such well-judged phrasing, such a melting tone, such a compelling build-up of tension."  

Italian critics raved, too, including Corriere della Sera's notoriously cranky classical music/opera legend, Isotta, who can cut down your entire career in a single sentence, usually written in Latin. Isotta, upon hearing Giannattasio, recalls divas past, just as Rupert Christiansen did, comparing her to actress Anna Magnani.

Isotta paragoned her to, honor of all honors, Magda Olivero. He writes:

"The protagonist is the girl from Avellino, Carmen Giannattasio. She's got good pronunciation, a beautiful voice and grand technique. She has, like I wrote a few days ago about Jonas Kauffman [in his Teatro alla Scala Lohengrin review], a foundation of singing "sul fiato" and "messe di voce" that gives you goose bumps. Her "Ah! dite alla giovine" burns out your eyeballs. In my opinion, she's a model sourced and inspired like one of the greatest "Grand Dames" of operatic arts, Magda Olivero."

So really, what more is there to say?

(Giannattasio in Alberta Ferretti dress and shoes. Hair/Make-up Mariano Sabbatelli. Photo Alessandro Sarno in Naples, Campania.)

Zac Posen Does [NOT DO] Maria Callas

Since the fashion industry's basically become an impatient, non-stop conveyor belt of collections between the fall and spring bookends, pre-fall's dropped.

American designer Zac Posen -- mainstay at The Metropolitan Opera's annual openings where he promotes his latest fashions on model-muses such as Crystal Renn -- devoted his 2013 pre-fall collection to "Maria Callas (in Argentina)", a campy spray of organza, tulle, leather and silk, entire collection here.

Callas was timeless elegance in sleekly-cut or brightly-patterned Biki, Pucci, Fendi and Yves Saint Laurent. She was more Parisian chic, less campy Southern Belle socialite as sourced in Posen's collection.

We're flattered that he's dipped into opera for inspiration but NONONO cat to the mini-film of Crystal Renn ungracefully channeling Callas (click here, it doesn't embed). (It's part of a "12/14/12 Market Highs" feature. Click on "Get the Scoop" to go to the first slide where the film's been embedded).

Puccini's Heroines, Costumed

Onstage and off, affable, humble Puccini loved his women. The Lucca loverboy charmed (the panties off) everyone he met and wrote about steely women with massive balls and a soft underbelly of sensitivity -- Manon Lescaut, Mimì, Musetta, Tosca, Magda, Minnie, Suor Angelica, Madama Butterfly and Turandot.

Puccini's diva couture is legendary -- the red velvet scoop-neck gown that Callas wore as Tosca; the gold embroidered red silk that Nilsson wore as Turandot; and Suor Angelica's awesome nun habit and starchy black robes (<--- said by no one. No one has ever said that.)   

The stage costumes of Puccini's stars go on display in a new exhibit, "PrimeDonne - le donne di Puccini", at Milan's Centro Diagnostico Italiano to celebrate the composer's protagonists as well as Made in Italy craftsmanship via restoration of the historic costumes -- Manon Lescaut (1893) (above), La bohème (1896) and Tosca (1900) (below) designed by Adolf Hohenstein. 
 
Viewing's at Milan's Centro Diagnostico Italiano on Via Simone Saint Bon, 20 on the western outskirts of the city. It's open M-F from 7am - 7pm and Saturday from 7am - noon, all free admission. To be inaugurated on December 17, the exhibition's organized by Fondazione Bracco, Accademia Teatro alla Scala and runs through the end of March 2013.

Parma Remembers Galina Vishnevskaya

Foundation Toscanini has issued a touching statement on soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, who passed away at 86 earlier this week. The Parma-based foundation's president Maurizio Roi recalled an evening with Vishnevskaya's husband, the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, and dedicated it to the couple's Moscow-based children, Olga and Elena.

La Fondazione Arturo Toscanini esprime il suo cordoglio per la scomparsa del soprano Galina Veshneskaya, erede e interprete della somma tradizione musicale russa e paladina dei diritti dell’infanzia, cui dedicò un lungo e appassionato impegno. Nell’inviare le condoglianze alle figlie Olga e Elena Rostropovic a Mosca, il presidente Maurizio Roi ha ricordato suo marito Mstislav Rostropovic e il suo ultimo concerto a Parma tenutosi nel gennaio 2006, quando diresse al Teatro Regio la Filarmonica Toscanini nella Sinfonia Leningrado di Šostakovic, nel centenario della sua nascita. “Mi ero da poco insediato alla Toscanini – racconta Roi – e quella fu l’occasione nella quale conobbi personalmente il Maestro Rostropovic. Fu una serata affascinante, che si concluse con una cena indimenticabile trascorsa a parlare di musica. Rostropovic dava del tu alla storia della musica”.

Arturo Toscanini Foundation expresses its condolences for the passing of soprano Galina Veshneskaya, heir and interpreter of the complete sum of Russian musical tradition and an advocate of children's rights, in which she was a long-time and passionate advocate. Sending condonlences to the daughters Olga and Elena Rostropovic in Moscow, president Maurizio Roi remembers her husband Mstislav Rostropovic and his last concert in Parma that took place in Jannuary 2006, when he conducted the Filarmonica Toscanini at the Teatro Regio in Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony on teh centenary of his birth. Recalls Roi: "I had been at Toscanini Foundation for a short while and that's when I personally had the chance to meet Maestro Rostropovich. It was a captivating evening, which ended with an unforgettable dinner spent talking about music. Rostropovich gave to you the history of the music."

Kicking it Old School, Elegantly

Forty-nine vintage photos of La Scala opening nights through the 50s and 60s, like the one of the great Guido Cantelli, above.

Lohengrin La Prima Recap Teaser: I'm Holding Out For a Hero

Last night under Milan's first snowfall, Teatro alla Scala opened its 2012-13 season with a new Wagner Lohengrin from German theatre director Claus Guth. Fat snow dampened Milan's elegant opera house season premiere, sober and bloodless, packed with more politicians (PM Mario Monti trailed by five ministers), bankers, managers and high-roller business dudes than the usual pseudo-celebrities.

Newspaper coverage was as lean as this year’s crop of protestors across Piazza della Scala, who rallied about deep unemployment and job cuts (overheard, "We won't pay for your crisis.") Luckily we had Milan's die-hard art ambassadors such as Marta Marzotto, Roberto Bolle and Carla Fracci for cultural backbone, and what the audience lacked in star power twinkled from onstage -- Jonas Kaufmann as the Swan Knight, Rene Pape as Heinrich and Scala's MD Barenboim guided its orchestra into sweet deliciousness. 

Nice surprise of the night? Since President Giorgio Napolitano wasn't in attendance (he was prompted a few days ago to pen a letter to Barenboim to explain his la prima della Scala absence was dictated by pre-election business -- not in protest of La Scala's decision to pass up Verdi for Wagner to open its current season in this year of Verdi/Wagner bicentennial), Barenboim relegated Inno del Regno d'Italia to post-opera with a costumed cast breaking into the national anthem at the final curtain call.

(Marta Marzotto)

Guth's haunted, symbolically-rich tale of the Swan Knight exhibited neurotic, anxious, traumatized protagonists -- emo kids who had forgotten to take their Adderall and Zoloft -- hopeless Generation X'ers fatalistically aware that they are doomed to failure and lonliness. Props to Elsa, sung by the courageous Annette Dasch, who flew into Milan literally the evening prior to replace principal Anja Harteros, who had cancelled the final dress on December 4 and was replaced by Ann Petersen who also caught whatever illness brewed backstage and equally bowed out of opening night. Jonas Kaufmann triumphed as the barefoot son of Parsifal for his sensitive, introspective performance, followed by Ortrud's effortless Evelyn Herlitzius and Telramund's Tomas Tomasson.

(Annette Dasch)

OC's official reviews for Opera Now and Grazia.it exit next week. To see photos of Bolle and Fracci (and other images from opening night) hit up OC's twitter.

La Scala Season Opening Night Bomb: Anja Harteros Out, Annette Dasch In for Elsa

We knew something was up when Anja Harteros pulled out of the December 4 final dress/anteprima of the new Claus Guth Lohengrin that opens Teatro alla Scala's 2012-13 season tonight (well, in two hours) and was replaced by Ann Petersen.

We were even more baffled when earlier, La Scala sent out a handful of official cast photos, noticeably absent any photos of Elsa -- Harteros, Petersen, whoever.

Now Teatro alla Scala announces on its website:

Cast change on 7 December - Annett Dasch from Bayreuth to La Scala

Due to a persistent flu, Mrs. Anja Harteros is forced to postpone her debut in Lohengrin, which opens our 2012/2013 Season. With Mrs. Ann Petersen also having contracted a similar indisposition, the part of Elsa will be sung by Mrs. Annette Dasch, who has sung the role since 2010 at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth.

The Teatro alla Scala wishes to thank Mrs. Dasch, who arrived last night in Milan, and with her generosity has given a sign of her affection to the Theatre and friendship to La Scala.

So how's that for opening night drama?

New Carmen Smoked Out of the Paris Opera

Not even Anna Caterina Antonacci as a smoking-hawt Carmen in stilettos, sequins, leopard print and black silk could save last night's disastrous opening at the Paris Opera that branded French theater director Yves Beaunesne's production full of fail -- drag queens and drug dealers, set in the 1970s during La Movida Madrileña was "silly and superficial" (as said politely, by The Financial Times).

Antonacci as Bizet's tragic, chain-smoking heroine was booed at the curtain call along with Beaunesne. Le Monde said "rarely has the Bizet masterpiece been such a complete failure." The French daily went on to say that Nikolai Schukoff as Don Josè sounded strangled and vocally-stunted while Ludovic Tezier as Escamillo was squashed into his role looking like an old Elvis Presley. Le Figaro also went to town with the headline "A Carmen too Blond to be Real" (Carmen trop blonde pour être vraie) and continued that the production distilled one of the most captivating operas of its repertory into boredom.

Lohengrin La Scala Preview Recap & Guth's Vision

Last night, OC was in Piermarini's elegant cream & gold-leaf den for its final dress anteprima of Lohengrin that officially opens the Teatro alla Scala 2012-13 season on December 7, the feast day of Milan's patron saint, Saint Ambrose. The past few years, Scala's been test driving its la prima for the Scala Under30 club with a 10$ cover charge, and last night the house was packed full of fresh-faced Wagner virgins.

OC was invited by la Scala to live-tweet Claus Guth's new production of Wagner's son of Parisfal, and her chipped Chanel Pêche Nacrée can attest to rapid-fire 140s fired-off for six hours straight. *cracks knuckles, racks-up hashtags and asperands* In case you missed it, you can relive its full glory on OC's stream, Teatro alla Scala's stream, along with in-house twitterers Massimo Bernardini and Matteo Bordone.

Guth's action unfolded in the Victorian era, with a barefoot Jonas Kaufmann as a short-tempered, confused, agitated youth scattering swan feathers around a puffy-chest Rene Pape gleaming with gold buttons against Barenboim's delicate cycle, gentle spin Wagner. And Kaufmann in frac. *Bond. Lohengrin Bond.*

In today's Corriere, Guth spoke to Giuseppina Manin about his new production, based on Wagner's inspiration of Grimms' Fairy Tales. He cast Elsa as a woman with wide-ranging emotional disorders, the payload from losing her parents and her little brother at a young age, which triggers a whole boatload of incestuous issues around her knight-in-shining-incest, Lohengrin. 
 
For Lohengrin, a "hero without identity", Guth drew on the 19th century case of a mysterious teenage boy, Kaspar Hauser, who appeared in the streets of Nurbenberg and claimed that he had been raised in total isolation during the years that Wagner wrote the opera. Hauser was fatally stabbed five years later and rumors arose that he was the hereditary prince of Baden, switched at birth.

Guth concluded: "They were turbulent years, in 1848, Europe ignited a thousand revolts, Marx and Engels wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party and this was only a couple months after Wagner had deployed to Dresden at the side of the anarchist Bakunin. The industrialism and capitalism of today was born then. It's a crucial moment in history that gave rise, a reaction, the desire to return to the past, a legendary world and irrationality. Lohenrin's a romantic opera born in a time that lived many realists. But behind the curtains of the story comes the disturbed ghosts of a present threat."

December 7th's opening night Lohengrin will be streamed live on Rai5 and Radio3, starting at 4:50 (the opera starts at 5:00pm). On tv, it will be on Rai HD, chanel 501.

Previewing La Scala's Lohengrin, One Tweet at a Time

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Wagner-freaks, Scala-lovers, Kaufmann-stalkers, lend me your ears. And your twitter. So that we can livetweet tonight's #AnteScala #Lohengrin preview for Milan's Teatro alla Scala. At 6pm Milan time, @operachic will be in-house live-tweeting the @teatroallascala preview of Claus Guth's new Lohengrin, which officially opens the Teatro alla Scala 2012-13 season on December 7. 

Staring Kaufmann, Pape and Harteros (tonight, however, Harteros is indisposed and Elsa will be sung by Ann Petersen) with Daniel Barenboim conducting, tonight's anteprima is devoted to the theater's La Scala Under 30 program. Would you follow OC? I'd follow OC. I'd follow OC hard. *#Lohengrins* :)

La Scala Welcomes Back Ceci (After 19 Years) to a Chorus of Boos, Barenboim Tells Everyone to Shut Up

When OC returned to Milan yesterday from a late-Fall USA vacation, the drama llama came to greet her with Cecilia Bartoli and Daniel Barenboim riding shotgun. 

Last night, as la Ceci and Barenboim opened the 2012/13 season of Filarmonica della Scala at Teatro alla Scala in a sold-out concert, the loggionisti rambunctiously booed them down.

Giuseppina Manin reports for Corriere della Sera that the concert's first half -- Baroquely-devoted to Haendel (assorted arias) and Mozart's Exultate, jubilate -- was roudly cheered.

All hell broke out after the intermission following a Rossini setlist (arias from Otello and La Cenerentola), greatly dividing Ceci's crankiest Milan critics and fans. Booing erupted from the loggione, the two upper-most decks of La Scala's elegant concert hall, followed by shouts -- "Go home", "Poor Rossini" and "Shame on you in a period of economic crisis", alluding to Ceci's exorbitant fees, one of the reasons why the Italian mezzo hadn't graced the Piermarini's stage over the past ninteen years since her last Milan appearance.  

Pro and Anti Ceci factions passionately-swapped insults until ambassador Barenboim turned to face the audience and said, "Siamo a un concerto — ricorda secco il maestro — Adesso state tutti zitti" -- "We're at a concert" - respects the maestro, dryly - "now everyone shut up."

Ceci emerged from the wings, unruffled, graciously thanked her fans and then gave a Cenerentola bis, followed by more applause and boos.

After the tussle, the opening night concert concluded with Mozart's 40th Symphony. At the final applause, stone-faced Barenboim did not look pleased.