That's probably because "the unforgettable voice of the 20th century" (the museum's website's description of the diva) is just one of many hundreds of people who have performed, danced and acted at Milan's famed Opera House. It opened on the site of a former church just two years after America declared its independence from Britain, and barely survived World War II bombing.
Admission to the museum included a quick peek at the stage from inside one of the boxes.
I was struck by an 18th-century "Portrait of a Singer" when I entered the museum. We'll have to take the artist's word for it; no opera was recorded before 1889.
Adolpho Wildt sculpted this bust of Arturo Toscanini. Long before he became famous in the United States as the music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, he performed the same role at La Scala until his refusal to support Mussolini forced him to flee Italy.
Puccini died before finishing Turandot which premiered, with Toscanini conducting, at La Scala in April 1926. Although another composer completed it, Toscanini laid down his baton at the last note written by Puccini, a touching tribute that continues in the current production a century later.
Even someone as ignorant as I about opera found plenty to appreciate in the museum's rich displays of musical instruments and more than two centuries of memorabilia, much of it donated by die-hard aficionados.
A rather macabre display case includes a photo of the composer on his death bed along with sculptures of his head and hand.
There also are set designs, props and costumes.
Rudolph Nureyev wore this jacket in The Nutcracker.
An entire room is devoted to the Commedia dell'Arte.
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| Pantalone & Arlecchino |
I enjoyed the portrait galleries, filled with silent ghosts, the most.
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| Gaetano Donizetti |
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| Adelina Patti |
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| Jules Massenet |
There's both a painting and a bust of Eleonora Duse whose mononym was once as famous as Madonna's.
My father wasn't an opera buff either but he spoke more than once of Enrico Caruso's powerful voice. He must have heard it on recordings which made his talent timeless and immediately accessible today. Ken was just two when the tenor died more than a century ago.
Ballet dancers were more my thing.
Nureyev and David both died of the same disease on January 6, 1993. It was a brutal time, just before protease inhibitors saved the lives of so many people with HIV.
An upstairs gallery featured the work of a French photographer who was given backstage access to La Scala's corps de ballet.
It also included an avant-garde video called "Beyond The Veil"
. . . and an exhibit called "Paper Ballerinas."
Who knows what this tableau was supposed to signify.
More Northern Italy
Florence
Bologna
Venice
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