La Scala

La Scala is a theater for opera. In an opera, people sing a whole story with music.

It is in Milan, a big city in Italy. Inside, there is room for about 2,000 people.

La Scala stands on a square in Milan, in northern Italy. It is an opera house: a theater where operas, stories told through singing and music, are performed, along with ballets and concerts.

Its full name is the Teatro alla Scala. It took its name from a church, Santa Maria della Scala, that once stood on the land where the theater was built. Today La Scala can seat 2,015 people.

The Teatro alla Scala stands on Piazza della Scala in Milan. It takes its name from the church of Santa Maria della Scala, named for Beatrice Regina della Scala, wife of Bernabò Visconti, which occupied the site before the theater.

The official history describes La Scala as becoming the appointed home of Italian opera seria from Rossini's arrival in 1812, with the ballets of Salvatore Viganò and Carlo Blasis extending its reach to dance. In 1997 it became a foundation under private ownership. The auditorium today seats 2,015 people.

At the very top of the theater is a gallery called the loggione.

Keen opera fans go there. Up there, you can hear the singers best! Behind the old building are two new towers. One is round, and one is a tall box.

High up, just under the ceiling, is the loggione, the top gallery. Keen opera fans head there because the singers and orchestra can be heard best from it. Down below, the musicians play in an orchestra pit, a sunken space in front of the stage.

From the square, look behind the old front and you can see two newer shapes: a tall, box-like fly tower, which holds the scenery above the stage, and a rounded oval tower. Both were added when the architect Mario Botta restored and modernized La Scala between 2002 and 2004.

The museum describes the loggione, the second gallery just below the vault, as the part of the theater where the acoustics let listeners hear singers and orchestra best. On the second and third levels, fifteen boxes keep traces of their original decoration, some dating from the scene designer Alessandro Sanquirico's work in the early 19th century. The orchestra pit, which Toscanini insisted on, covers 110 m².

Botta's renovation of 2002–2004, the most profound since the Second World War, added the fly tower and the oval tower that are visible from outside. The new Teatro degli Arcimboldi, in a former industrial area, opened on 19 January 2002, the month the works began. During the works, builders removed wartime debris buried under the stage and uncovered 18th-century Lombard-style tiles beneath the linoleum in the boxes.

Long ago, during a war, the theater was damaged.

It was fixed and opened again in 1946. Today, people still come to hear opera, music and to see ballet.

In August 1943, during the Second World War, La Scala was considerably damaged in air raids. It was quickly rebuilt, and it reopened on 11 May 1946 with a concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The builders made the new ceiling with the same measurements and the same wood, poplar, that Piermarini had used.

After its big restoration, La Scala reopened on 7 December 2004 with the same opera that had opened it in 1778, Salieri's L'Europa riconosciuta. In 2004 the theater's museum also returned to Piermarini's building.

Air raids on the night of 15–16 August 1943 caused considerable damage. Reconstruction, led by Luigi Lorenzo Secchi, began with a concert among the ruins, and the theater reopened on 11 May 1946 with a concert conducted by Toscanini. The vault was rebuilt to the same measurements and in the same material, hard poplar, as Piermarini's, and new nails were made copying 18th-century ones found in the debris; the chandelier is a faithful copy of the one destroyed in 1943.

The restored theater reopened on 7 December 2004 with Salieri's Europa riconosciuta, conducted by Riccardo Muti, the opera of the 1778 opening. The Scala Theatre Museum, redesigned by Pier Luigi Pizzi, returned to Piermarini's building at the same time.