The long-awaited final architectural plan for the restoration of La
Scala, which was officially presented to the public and the press at Milan's city
hall on 10 May, has aroused a heated debate.
The plan's author is Swiss architect Mario Botta, a former pupil of such masters of modern architecture as Carlo Scarpa, Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn; among his most recent works are the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the New Synagogue in Tel Aviv and the City Library in Dortmund, Germany.
In Botta's plan, the depth of the stage and backstage in combination will increase from 48 to 70 meters, thus eliminating the Piccola Scala, an auxiliary venue for chamber opera seating 250. A new stage tower in the shape of a parallelepiped (a kind of modified cube) will rise 40 meters (the current tower is 35 meters) at the building's rear flanking via Verdi. This addition will host various service spaces, including offices and seven rehearsal rooms. Another large oval structure, 15 meters tall and hovering 15 meters over ground level, will house the theater's canteen and dressing rooms, soaring over the roofs of via Filodrammatici.
Although both the parallelepiped and the oval are designed as abstract modern volumes, their surfaces will be covered with gray-yellowish "botticino" marble, closely matching the color of the original main building, designed by Giuseppe Piermarini and inaugurated in 1778.
Several aspects of the plan have provoked objections. Botta would like to remove two 1930s water towers from either side of the theater's façade, but Vittorio Sgarbi, the troublesome vice-minister for Italy's Cultural Heritage — and art critic, TV anchorman and opera director, among many other things — has unofficially announced his disagreement. More radical criticism was voiced by 80-year-old soprano Renata Tebaldi, a living icon for opera-goers in Milan and elsewhere ("poor Piermarini will turn over in his grave," said she), and by the citizens' pressure group known as "Salviamo La Scala" (Let's Save La Scala), whose members were distributing leaflets in front of the city hall bearing the statement: "This is destruction instead of restoration." In their opinion, the added structures will dwarf Piermarini's stately opera house and permanently disfigure the city's skyline.
Things are seen quite differently inside Palazzo Marino, the seat of the municipal government. Mayor Gabriele Albertini (of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia Party), emphasized continuity between old and new, tradition and future in Botta's plan. Albertini thinks that all of Milan's citizens will follow the construction closely over the next 30 months, and will welcome a "full revival" of the house. His point was echoed by La Scala superintendent Carlo Fontana, who talked about a "modern, efficient theater which may enable us to enhance quality and offer a cultural service to the whole public."
Less optimistic, predictably, is opposition city councillor Piero Rutelli, of the Margherita (Daisy) Party. He noted that the third and final stage of the project has never been discussed or approved by the city council at large, and said that a press conference held by the mayor and his "junta" cannot replace democratic procedures.
La Scala vacated the theater and moved to a temporary house, the Teatro degli
Arcimboldi, in January. Botta and the city goverment
estimate renovation costs at € 40 million, but some observers
say the cost could rise to € 50 million.
