Opera Chic

Muti in Tel Aviv Slams Scala Dress Code: "Do They Also Worry About The Underwear?"

As everyone who has watched The Three Days of the Condor knows, you recognize the best killers in the business by their Zen-like calm: the great genius that is Max Von Sidow plays a hit man with such cool grace that you almost end up liking the guy – OK, he massacres an office full of CIA analysts and misses the lucky hunkiness that was the early-1970s Robert Redford by the proverbial hair, but you really like Von Sidow’s professional, cool demeanor. He pulls off a massacre without breaking a sweat -- or even raising an eyebrow.

And then you think, he’d make a hell of a conductor.

See, because when – just a few hours ago – Maestro Riccardo Muti spoke to the journalists present at the Tel Aviv press conference for his Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra concert he took care of explaining – really, a class act – that Thursday night’s performance will be in honor of Arturo Toscanini, the first conductor -- in 1936 -- of the then-newborn Orchestra. Muti took pride in the fact that he considers himself "a disciple of Toscanini", and then, after he was done with the questions about the concert, just then, somebody asked him about la Scala's dress code fiasco.

And just like Von Sidow, Muti took out his victims (ie, la Scala and GM Lissner) quietly, almost smiling. In a whisper.      

«We often worry about pointless things instead of taking care of the important ones. We need young people to feel comfortable in the oldest music institutions, not to worry about ties and socks"

And then, ninja-style, the coup de grace.

«Do they also worry about the underwear?».

«Spesso ci si preoccupa di cose inutili, piuttosto che delle cose serie. Abbiamo bisogno di fare sentire i giovani a proprio agio nei luoghi più antichi della musica, non di preoccuparci di cravatte e calzini».

«Si interessano anche alla biancheria intima?»

GAME! SET! MATCH! OMGLOL

His Italian-language direct quote follows:

Dress Code @ La Scala: The Final Episode, Part ROFL

(Nota Bene to Opera Chic's radio-loving readers: if you want to read about Opera Chic on the radio -- she took part yesterday in a live panel on teh beeb (BBC) with the juicy awesomeness that is Norman Lebrecht -- scroll down here).

   

You know, first La Scala writes on the tickets that gentlemen should always wear a jacket and a tie (We quote: "Formal dress is required at premiere performances. Gentlemen are requested to wear a jacket and tie at all other performances.").

More-or-less-unintended consequences: people are all like wtf? (especially the chronically under-dressed). Giorgio Armani is all like w00t and sez "buy my stuff youll look sassy and they'll nev4r kick you out". Nobel Prize Dario Fo p00ps on "elitist" La Scala. People start looking for their tuxedos from the 1970s, turquoise lapels and all, afraid that Lissner's Iron Fist will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to make fashion faux-pas.

Eventually Scala General Manager Stéphane Lissner, busy hacking all controversial scenes off of Robert Carsen's staging of Candide, finds the time to actually check out the back of his theatre's tickets.

mmmkay.

And then (if you believe the pro-Lissner camp) he gets kinda pissed, apparently, BECAUSE THE WORDING APPROVED FOR OFFICIAL SCALA DOCUMENTS (like the Programma 2006/2007 that Opera Chic has rite here) WAS, AND IS, QUITE A BIT DIFFERENT. If you belong to the anti-Lissner camp, well, he simply backpeddled.

o rly?

Yes rly. Because La Scala's official documents, in the "Regolamento di Sala", state literally that:

"E' gradito l'abito scuro per le prime rappresentazioni e sempre la giacca e la cravatta per i Signori. Si raccomanda comunque per tutte le rappresentazioni un abbigliamento consono al decoro del Teatro".

In English (and the italics are Opera Chic's): "A dark suit is appropriate; and, as always, a jacket and tie for the gentlemen. Anyway, we recommend for all the shows to wear clothing that is appropriately matched to the theatre's decorum".

To boil it down, wording such as "required" and "requested" do not belong to official La Scala policy -- they just appear on the back of tickets.

That's why Lissner finally spaketh. Officially Lissner stated (in a letter to daily La Repubblica, which cannot be found online) the following:

"...non ho mai emanato alcuna norma nuova né tanto meno restrittiva in materia d' abbigliamento... i «consigli» rivolti al pubblico, che genericamente riguardano un invito a indossare giacca e cravatta e a adottare un «abbigliamento consono al decoro del teatro» per le donne, esistono da sempre alla Scala... Non esistono dunque norme restrittive, se non quelle del buon gusto e del rispetto della storia del Teatro, per l' accesso alla Scala, che proprio su mia iniziativa ha lanciato quest' anno un Progetto Giovani che tende a un democratico allargamento del pubblico".

In English:

"I've never ordered a new, restrictive dress code... the 'advice' to the audience is generic, and aims toward jacket and tie for the gentlemen and appropriate dress for the ladies, have always existed at La Scala... Hence there are no restrictive regulations, with the exception of the respect for good taste and the history of the theatre, to access La Scala. On my initiative La Scala has launched this year a 'Project Youth' to further enlarge and democratize the audience".

So who wrote the, "Formal dress is required at premiere performances. Gentlemen are requested to wear a jacket and tie at all other performances" bit, in pretty clear and harsh wording? Opera Chic has a suspect: Roberto Alagna. He probably hax0red into La Scala's computers and printed that stuff on the back of the tickets. Why? Because those who booed him, he noticed, weren't wearing a tie. 

^^^UPDATE^^^

The last words re: how to dress for an opera show rightly belong to Giuseppe Filianoti (in the linked article's larger photo, he is dressed for an audition to a Starsky & Hutch Broadway musical): "You look normally!".

You cannot say it any better than that.

Dario Fo vs. Stéphane Lissner: No Jacket Required

As Opera Chic reported on January 16, the latest step in Scala General Manager Stéphane Lissner SuperFlyTNT hardline against, well, everybody and everything, is his decision to enforce a dress code at la Scala for the gentlemen.

Today's Repubblica carries a story about the dress code where Milanese Nobel Laureate and Opera Fan, the awesome, naturally elegant Dario Fo, expresses his deep disappointment: "This is a bad omen: the man makes the clothes, not the other way around. I think La Scala's management would rather have the same type of people in the audience, all lookalikes, all the better if they belong to the upper class. It's discrimination".

GM Lissner's Iron Fist, Part LXXVII

Opera Chic won't deny her slightly horrified reaction whenever she sees some tragically underdressed person in the audience at La Scala: the occasional denim jacket + denim pants ensemble, the senseless T-shirt, even -- Opera Chic swears -- the lady in a track suit make her fashion conscious skin crawl (il loggione has different rules, unless it's la prima of Dec 7: those who go there  are too busy analyzing every single detail of the performance in order to savage The Damned and -- much less often -- wildly cheer The Saved to care about what they wear... really, the Loggione always has different rules, even when fashion is concerned, and a certain shabbiness is kind of de rigueur).

But Opera Chic is also very wary of the flashy hordes of VIPs and various TV personalities who often show up only to show off: plunging decolletages that would make Jenna Jameson blush, ripped jeans, gentlemen in a white tuxedo (why?) for the sixth replica of a minor opera that make them look like the barman at Ridotto dei Palchi, but not nearly as cool.

Milanese style is all about understatement: elegance here is about not being flashy, mixing a healthy dose of older, well-worn clothes with that new beautiful thing that comes straight from the 10 Corso Como sale. And gentlemen in a nice dark suit with a nice tie and black shoes cannot go wrong: their stylish, unassuming presence at the theatre makes Opera Chic very happy.

But La Scala GM Stéphane Lissner, an elegant, even fastidious dresser who always sports nicely tailored suits, probably even more appalled than Opera Chic by untucked loud shirts and the hoodies that we see more and more often in the audience, has decided to enforce a dress code: even the tickets now carry the warning "Formal dress is required at premiere performances. Gentlemen are requested to wear a jacket and tie at all other performances."

Apparently, those who don't follow the new code will be admitted in the theatre but they will be asked to remember the dress code next time they attend (even if Opera Chic happily dreamt of people forcibly removed from the premises for crimes against fashion). Then Last Sunday Corriere della Sera ran an entire page about this new decision: and the following day opera fan Giorgio Armani has written a small op-ed in the paper, supporting Lissner's decision.

Giorgio confesses that in the 1970s, to follow the fashion, he ditched his tuxedo and dark suits and went to la Scala wearing white turtlenecks and velvet jackets: "I felt very much out of place". But, Armani advises, "style is not anymore about stiff, old fashioned English suits that once were considered the pinnacle of elegance. Nowadays elegance means soft, streamlined designs that make a man feel  confortable even where wearing a suit. Because an excess of sprezzatura, at la Scala, is definitely a missed note".