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However leaders absent hit a low note at La Scala
IT WAS meant to be the cultural highlight of the year in Italy, the moment when the great and the good came together to celebrate the glory of La Scala, Italy’s “Temple of Music”, and its reopening after three years of restoration. In the event, it was as notable for who did not attend the gala performance last night as for those who did.
As the curtain went up on Antonio Salieri’s Europa Riconosciuta, the opera that inagurated La Scala in 1778, President Deiss of Switzerland was the only head of state present. The prime ministers of Bulgaria, Albania and Croatia were there, as well as Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy.
However, President Bush, the Queen, Tony Blair and President Putin did not show, having declined their invites, Even President Ciampi of Italy was absent — on a trade mission to China — although Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, was there with his wife and daughter, wearing a creation by Giorgio Armani, who was also there. So, too, was a resplendent Sophia Loren, also wearing Armani. The Queen was represented at La Scala by Sir Ivor Roberts, the British Ambassador to Rome.
To Milan’s rich and powerful, who had paid up to €2,000 (£1,400) for a ticket, and their fur-coated, heavily bejewelled consorts, the shortage of international guests was of no consequence. After three years of exile at the modern Arcimboldi Theatre in an industrial suburb, they were back amid the splendidly restored velvet, marble and red and gold decor of Giuseppe Piermarini’s Habs -burg-era masterpiece.
Equally enthralled were the loggionisti, who had queued all night for tickets in the gods at €50 (£35) each. The performance was relayed live on giant screens in Milan and at theatres throughout Lombardy, and even via broadband to the San Vittoreprison, “to bring cultural joy to the inmates”.
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