Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). Italian Ambassador Fabrizio Bucci invited guests to the Embassy of the Italian Republic in Berlin’s Tiergarten district. There he gave a short speech, and welcomed Fortunato Ortombina, the new director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan since 17 February 2025.
Previously Dominique Meyer had been director of La Scala in Milan (from May 2020). Meyer was previously general manager and artistic director of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris (from 1999) and director of the Vienna State Opera from 2010 to 2020.
Fortunato Ortombina became nominated superintendent under Dominique Meyer in September 2024. He previously ran the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. And Meyer, whose term of office was actually due to expire on 28 February 2025, remained in office until the end of July 2025. The transition from one to the other was, as they say, smooth.
“Balanchine/Robbins Triptych” was the last ballet of the La Scala season under Dominique Meyer, who, together with Manuel Legris, set about reviving ballet at the Vienna State Opera. Connoisseurs and critics know that the ballet triptych at La Scala in Milan combined three 20th-century masterpieces by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins into one unforgettable evening. The works were created to revive the great era of classical ballet in Russia with the music of Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
Ballet, opera and concerts
will also dominate the 2025/26 season at La Scala in Milan, “but also chamber music, performances for children and young people, encounters, invitations and visits“ according to the introduction to the programme presented on 26 May 2025. And “no Milanese should ever be able to say that they have never been to La Scala”. This is the declared goal of the new artistic director Fortunato Ortombina. In a message from the Italian Embassy in Berlin, he said that “the programme for the coming years will follow the production model of ‘Stagione Theatre’. A limited number of titles, with a clear focus on new productions and sufficient rehearsal time“ is the imperative for this reason: “to offer the audience, especially subscribers, highest quality”.
That the new season will begin on 4 December 2025 with an opera by Dmitri Shostakovich, „Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District“, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death, was the prelude to a tour of the programme, divided into opera, ballet and concerts. There is no question that the complete double cycle of “Der Ring des Nibelungen“ conducted by Alexander Soddy and Simone Young, is already sold out to subscribers. In addition to Dmitri Shostakovich and, above all, Richard Wagner, works by Giacomo Puccini (Turandot), Giuseppe Verdi (Nabucodonosor and La traviata) and Gaetano Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor and L’elisir d’amore) will also be presented.
Fortunato Ortombina invited those present at the Italian Embassy to visit the Teatro alla Scala, and Ambassador Fabrizio Bucci invited them to the buffet next door. Salute! Or as some might say: Da capo!
Remark:
Rendered into English by Blimey Blondel.
