Spotlight: Teatro alla Scala

First Encounters with La Scala

When La Scala reopened in May 1946 after the destruction of the Second World War, Arturo Toscanini conducted a concert that quickly became a symbol of cultural reconstruction in Europe. In the years that followed, the Milan opera house entered a new international phase — and Herbert von Karajan became one of the artists who shaped it most strongly.

Karajan had first appeared at La Scala already in 1940, conducting concerts with music by Richard Strauss, Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart. At the time, he was known in Italy mainly as a concert conductor. His later operatic work at La Scala had not yet begun.

After the war, however, Milan became one of the central stages of Karajan’s international career. Over nearly three decades, he returned to La Scala for productions with singers such as Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Mirella Freni, Birgit Nilsson and Jon Vickers.

La Scala and Karajan after 1945

After the Second World War, Milan became one of the most important places in the rebuilding of Karajan’s international career. While he remained isolated in parts of Europe in the immediate post-war years, Italy reopened artistic opportunities relatively quickly.

La Scala itself had also entered a new phase. After the destruction of the theatre in 1943, the house reopened in May 1946 with a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Under the leadership of Antonio Ghiringhelli, the theatre increasingly expanded its international profile and opened itself more strongly to non-Italian repertoire.

Within this environment, Karajan soon returned to Milan. Victor de Sabata, one of Italy’s leading conductors at the time, played an important role in supporting Karajan’s early post-war work at La Scala. In 1948, Karajan appeared again at the theatre with concerts and guest performances by the Vienna State Opera, including Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Sena Jurinac and Giuseppe Taddei.

For Karajan, La Scala quickly became far more than a guest engagement. At a time when his international career was still rebuilding, Milan offered him access to an important artistic network, major singers and increasingly ambitious opera productions. During the following years, La Scala became one of the central stages of his post-war career.

 

Opera, Recordings and Film at La Scala

Karajan’s first major opera productions at La Scala remained closely connected to German and Austrian repertoire. In the early 1950s, he conducted productions of Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. These productions brought singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Sena Jurinac, Wolfgang Windgassen and Hans Hotter to Milan.

In the early 1950s, Antonio Ghiringhelli increasingly encouraged Karajan to move beyond the German repertoire at La Scala. The decisive turning point came with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in 1954 starring Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano. Karajan had been deeply influenced by Arturo Toscanini’s approach to Italian opera and later recalled his own surprise at the dramatic power Toscanini revealed in the score:

“When we heard that Toscanini wanted to conduct this in Vienna, I honestly asked myself after playing through the vocal score, ‘What can there be in this?’”¹

The success of Lucia marked the beginning of Karajan’s deeper engagement with Italian opera. Over the following years, he conducted productions of Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s Falstaff and La Traviata, Puccini’s La Bohème, Wagner’s Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde, as well as later productions of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Many of these productions involved singers such as Maria Callas, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Mirella Freni, Birgit Nilsson, Jon Vickers, Leontyne Price and Nicolai Gedda.

 

Major Opera Productions at La Scala

—  Pia Bernauer (Karajan Institute)