Friday - La Scala

Today I keep humming Nessum Dorum and can't seem to stop. Yes, we went to La Scala!!!  The opera, Turandot, was wonderful and what a thrill to be inside what has been called "the temple of opera".  The staging last night was very effective. and the interior of the opera house was quite stunning with its red velvet chairs and boxes and its gold trimmed ivory coloured balcony facades.  The conductor, Riccardo Chailly, was great to watch as he energetically controlled the segments of the orchestra while mouthing evey syllable which was sung. Lui got the most response from the auduence - obviously a favourite. But Turandot and the others were also up to the task. Perhaps Nessum Dorum wasn't the very best we have heard. We wanted Calef to bring the house down by soaring over the orchestra which he didn't, but it was more than agreeable. I could go on but won't on this blog, because we also had a fair bit of drama ourselves surrounding this opera event. We were never quite sure that we would be able to get tickets for last night's opening performance of Pucinni's Turandot. The online tickets had sold out long before we left Canada, so we had 2 options:  wait in line for one of the 120 tickets released on the day of the performance or hope that the hotel could help us. We shared our situation with the hotel bartender who knew someone who could sometimes get tickets at the last minute although the price of the tickets would be higher than normal. Faced with an extremely long lineup for last minute tickets and heavy rain, we hope our Max would come through. At 5 pm, an envelope arrived for two tickets in the second balcony. We took the subway near our hotel. When we arrived the area around the opera house was cordoned off and ringed by shoulder to shoulder riot police complete with shields, etc. There were many onlookers outside the protected area. When we approached, they asked to see our tickets and one of the riot policemen was told to step aside and let us pass. We then walked through an evacuated square to a second checkpoint, again showed our tickets and made our way to the steps of La Scala. It was opening night and the opening day of Expo 2015. Media cameras were all around. The who's who of Milan was present including the prime minister of Italy, celebrities, and many fashionable people including a gorgeous svelte 6 foot 2 inch blonde with a glittery gown the neckline of which was more of a navel line. Earlier in the day, there had been riots nearby protesting the Expo and the huge cost of it.  Cars had been torched, banks had been robbed and store windows broken. Of course, we had heard nothing of this ahead of time. At the end of the opera, we were thrilled that we had finally been to LaScala and had heard an opera by Wally's favourite composer, Puccini. We returned to the hotel when we thanked our Max and had a celebratory drink. Unfortunately in all our excitement, we had left our camera and my iPhone at the hotel, so only have two photos to share of this memorable experience - a portion of the exterior of La Scala taken earlier in the day and our program.