Musical encounter Tickets

Teatro Alla Scala, Milan, Italy

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Important Info

Type: Classical Concert

City: Milan, Italy

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

E-tickets: Print at home or at the box office of the event if so specified. You will find more information in your booking confirmation email.

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Overview

Saint-Saëns’s final work involving the cello was La muse et le poète, Op 132, in which that instrument is joined by a violin to form what he referred to as a conversation between the two instruments instead of a debate between two virtuosos.

Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49, was completed on 23 September 1839 and published the following year. The work is scored for a standard piano trio consisting of violin, cello and piano. The trio is one of Mendelssohn's most popular chamber works and is recognized as one of his greatest along with his Octet, Op. 20.

During the initial composition of the work, Mendelssohn took the advice of fellow composer Ferdinand Hiller to revise the piano part. The revised version was in a more romantic, Schumannesque style with the piano given a more important role in the trio. Indeed, the revised piece was reviewed by Schumann, who declared Mendelssohn to be "the Mozart of the nineteenth century, the brightest musician, who most clearly understands the contradictions of the age and is the first to reconcile them."

La muse et le poète, Op 132

The background to the work’s composition has its bizarre side. A statue of the composer had been exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1907. A female admirer, Mme Caruette, wanted to present it to the town of Dieppe, but strictly a law forbade the erection of statues to the living. However, political intervention solved that problem and the statue duly found a place in the town’s theatre, allowing Saint-Saëns to make one of his tart sallies, to the effect that since he must be dead to have a statue of himself put up, he wouldn’t need to make a speech. When the good Mme Caruette rejoined her ancestors in 1909, he wrote a one-movement piano trio in her memory which his publisher, Jacques Durand, insisted on giving the title it now bears, much to his fury. He then orchestrated it and the work was premiered in London in 1910 by Ysaÿe and Hollman. A critic of the Parisian premiere found in it tenderness, sombreness and pain as well as an inner drama. Beyond these qualities, listeners need not make an effort to discern a form for the piece: its improvisational structure was deliberate, as a hit against the Germans whose insistence on formal rigour was, he felt, destroying music’s soul.

Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

The trio has four movements:

Molto allegro ed agitato (D minor)
Andante con moto tranquillo (B-flat major)
Scherzo: Leggiero e vivace (D major)
Finale: Allegro assai appassionato (D minor, ending in D major)

A typical performance lasts just under 30 minutes.

Molto allegro ed agitato
The first movement is in sonata form, without an introduction. It begins with a cantabile main theme played by the cello, with the piano providing a syncopated accompaniment. The violin then joins the cello with a distorted version of the theme. Further variations of the main theme fill the transition to the second theme, also introduced by the cello, which is in A major. Mendelssohn combines both themes in the development, which is predominately in D minor, the key in which the movement also ends. In the recapitulation, Mendelssohn adds a violin counter-melody to support the return of the original theme.

Andante con moto tranquillo
The piano introduces the second movement, with the eight bar melody in the right hand and the accompaniment divided between the hands, as in a number of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. Below this, the bass line in the piano moves methodically, carefully balancing with the accompaniment and the melody. After the piano plays the main theme, the violin repeats it with a counterpoint played on the cello.

Scherzo
The short and light scherzo is essentially in sonata form. As in the second movement, the main theme is first played on the piano, which then reduces itself to fragmentary accompaniment almost immediately. The rhythmic motif of the main theme is present throughout the movement, except in the more lyrical central section, whose theme resembles material from the first movement.

Finale
After Hiller gave Mendelssohn his advice, the finale was the most revised movement and unsurprisingly has a busy piano part. Various keyboard techniques are called upon in the movement, from close chords to sweeping arpeggios and chromatic octaves. The cantabile moments provide a refreshing contrast. The trio finishes with a shift to D major shortly before the end.

Venue Info

Teatro Alla Scala - Milan
Via Filodrammatici, 2

Teatro Alla Scala is an opera house in Milan. Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala. The theatre is regarded as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres globally. It is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet, La Scala Theatre Orchestra, and the Filarmonica della Scala orchestra.

The Teatro alla Scala was founded, under the auspices of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, to replace the Royal Ducal Theatre, which was destroyed by fire on 26 February 1776 and had until then been the home of opera in Milan. The cost of building the new theatre was borne by the owners of the boxes at the Ducal, in exchange for possession of the land on which stood the church of Santa Maria alla Scala (hence the name) and for renewed ownership of their boxes. Designed by the great neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini, La Scala opened on 3 August 1778 with Antonio Salieri's opera L'Europa riconosciuta, to a libretto by Mattia Verazi.

With the advent of Rossini in 1812 (La pietra del paragone), the Teatro alla Scala was to become the appointed place of Italian opera seria: of its history dating back more than a century and of its subsequent tradition up till the present. The catalogue of Rossini's works performed until 1825 included: Il turco in Italia, La Cenerentola, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La donna del lago, Otello, Tancredi, Semiramide and Mosé. During that period the choreographies of Salvatore Viganò (1769-181) and of Carlo Blasis (1795-1878) also widened the theatre's artistic supremacy to include ballet.

An exceptional new season of serious opera opened between 1822 and 1825, with Chiara e Serafina by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) and Il pirata by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835). The later operas of Donizetti performed at La Scala were (until 1850) Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, Torquato Tasso, La fille du régiment, La favorita, Linda di Chamonix, Don Pasquale, and Poliuto. These were followed (until 1836) by Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Norma, La sonnambula, Beatrice di Tenda and I puritani.

In 1839 Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio inaugurated the cycle of operas by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), the composer whose name is linked more than any other to the history of La Scala. After the dismal failure of Un giorno di regno, Nabucco was performed in 1842. It was the first, decisive triumph of Verdi's career. At the same time, the strong patriotic feelings stirred by Nabucco founded the "popularity" of opera seria and identified its image with the Scala.

Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) became the artistic director and introduced radical reform into the theatre, both in its organisational aspects and in its relations with the public. Toscanini, one of the greatest conductors of all time, took up Verdi's musical inheritance and launched a tradition of interpretation that continued uninterruptedly and was renewed during the twentieth century. It was he who reappraised and regularly performed at the Scala the works of Richard Wagner (hitherto only belatedly and inadequately recognised). He also firmly extended the Scala's orchestral repertoire to include symphonic music.

In 1948 maestro Guido Cantelli (1920-1956) made his debut and established himself as one of the leading postwar conductors. Numerous opera performances productions (the Wagnerian cycle conducted in 1950 by Wilhelm Furtwängler, the Verdi repertoire by Victor De Sabata, etc), concerts (Herbert von Karajan, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Bruno Walter, etc), singers (Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Mario Del Monaco, etc), ballet performances (Margot Fonteyn, Serge Lifar, Maya Plissetskaya, Rudolf Nureyev), and productions (Luchino Visconti, Giorgio Strehler) belong not only to the history of the Scala, but to that of the history of musical theatre since the war.

In 1965 Claudio Abbado made his début at the Scala and in 1972 was named conductor of the Scala Orchestra. Until 1986 he directed among other works Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola, L'Italiana in Algeri by Rossini, Simon Boccanegra, Macbeth and Don Carlo by Verdi, the recent Al gran sole carico d'amore by Luigi Nono, and Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy. He also conducted numerous concerts. The chorus-master was Romano Gandolfi. In 1975 the ballet dancer Oriella Dorella debuted at La Scala. Among other contemporary composers, up till 1986 the Theatre continued to give works by Luciano Berio (La vera storia), Franco Donatoni (Atem) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (Samstag aus Licht).

In 1981 Riccardo Muti debuted at the Scala as an opera conductor (Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro). Giulio Bertola was appointed to direct the Chorus. In 1982 the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala was established. In 1985 Alessandra Ferri made her debut at the Scala. In 1986 Riccardo Muti was appointed musical director. From 1989 to 1998 he reintroduced the best-loved works (Rigoletto, La traviata, Macbeth, La forza del destino) and numerous other titles by Verdi including Falstaff and Don Carlo.

In 1991 Roberto Gabbiani took over the directorship of the chorus. In 1997 La Scala was converted into a Foundation under private ownership, thus opening a decisive phase of modernisation.

On 7 December 2001 a new production of Otello, conducted by Muti, concluded the Verdi Year and, for the time being, performances at Piermarini’s original building in Piazza Scala. Major restoration and modernisation works of the Theatre began in January 2002.

The 2005-2006 Season, dedicated to the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, was inaugurated by Idomeneo conducted by Daniel Harding. The 2006/07 season saw the return on 7 December of an opera by Verdi, Aida, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, and the launch of the Celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of Arturo Toscanini’s Death. On 7 December 2007 the 2007/08 season opened with Tristan und Isolde conducted by Daniel Barenboim. The opera marked the beginning of a closer collaboration between the Teatro alla Scala and the Israeli-Argentinian Maestro.