If there were any doubts that Italy's premiere opera house can be a lively kind of place, the events of the last couple of weeks serve as a reminder. First, rumors swirled around the successor to the early-departing Daniel Barenboim (though there seem to be no hard feelings on either side there), with some lining up behind Riccardo Chailly, others claiming that Fabio Luisi was the anointed one. Then, one of the theater's notorious booing incidents, as leading Polish tenor Piotr Beczała felt the wrath of the self-opinionated few in the gods. But there will be cheers and champagne today, after confirmation, reported by the New York Times, that Chailly will indeed take over in 2015.
He will begin with holding the title of Principal Conductor--becoming Music Director in 2017. Between that year and 2022, he will lead a minimum of two operas and two cycles of three concerts each season (it will be slightly higher than that in 2015 and 2016). Chailly is also currently music director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus. In the new job, for those who like a neat symmetry, he follows his mentor Claudio Abbado, who served in the role from 1968 to 1986--La Scala has several times had long-serving music directors, others including Riccardo Muti, Arturo Toscanini and, longest of them all, Victor De Sabata (1930-53).
The homecoming of an Italian to the La Scala podium will be a warm one, more for his talents than his nationality, but the audiences will be proud to have a local hero in situ (Chailly was previously Music Director and now Conductor Laureate of the "La Verdi" orchestra in Milan). He has been expected to lead a major opera house for years, but Chailly is a very individual kind of a musician, who (commendably) does what he feels is right for his art, and now clearly feels the right time.
That's exciting news. Now, if he can only do something about the rude people in the balcony...
