Name: L'elisir d'amore for Children
Start: 2026-12-06T14:30:00
Location: Teatro alla Scala

Teatro alla Scala

Teatro alla Scala Orchestra

Members of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra

Each year, La Scala entrusts a production to the forces of the Teatro alla Scala Academy of Performing Arts: the orchestra, soloists, and chorus are given the opportunity to engage with the main stage in front of the Season’s audience. For 2026, a new production of Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore is planned, conceived and designed to later be adapted as a performance for young audiences. The production offers the opportunity for two important debuts: Marco Alibrando, one of the most interesting Italian conductors of the new generation, recently appointed Music Director of the Nationaltheatre and Staatskapelle Weimar and the musical force behind the innovative Milan-based project Voce all’Opera, is rapidly establishing his career both in Italy and internationally. Maria Mauti arrives at La Scala following her work as a writer and documentary filmmaker, as well as her first opera directing experience with Norma in Macerata.

L’elisir d’amore

A blessing and a challenge in the programming of every major opera house, La traviata holds a special place in La Scala’s history, marked by the legendary 1953 production conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, directed by Luchino Visconti, and starring Maria Callas. That iconic interpretation seemed untouchable until 1990, when Riccardo Muti commissioned a new, lavish production from director Liliana Cavani, with sets by Dante Ferretti and costumes by Gabriella Pescucci, featuring an all-young cast. This evocative and poetic staging returns to the stage in 2026, conducted by Michele Gamba, who in recent years has led major productions at La Scala including Rigoletto, Médée, Turandot, and Tosca. The cast is unmissable: alongside the charismatic Nadine Sierra in the title role, Piero Pretti and Iván Ayón Rivas alternate as Alfredo, with Boris Pinkhasovich and Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Giorgio Germont

La traviata

A story of love, betrayal, and redemption, set between joyful peasant festivals and the white throng of willis, as captivating as they are merciless: Giselle, the quintessential romantic ballet, continues to move audiences with its delicate story, drawing them in through the technique and sensitivity of the performers’ interpretation, in the contrast between a sunny world and a dark realm populated by spirits. The La Scala Ballet brings back the unforgettable choreography of Coralli-Perrot in the revival by Yvette Chauviré, who, with her care and refinement in roles like Giselle, elevated the classical tradition in all its purity and earned global acclaim. Her version, which first premiered at La Scala in 1950, saw her perform as the ill-fated young peasant girl who dreamed of love and loved to dance. With the classic La Scala staging by Aleksandr Benois, Giselle is a part of the theatre’s history, performed by its artists in many countries around the world, infusing each revival with new life and emotions, keeping this wonderful production alive.

Giselle

On World Animal Day, our heroes will embark on a journey through some of the most beautiful and famous works in the operatic world… and who knows, the sound of a horn might just take them to other places as well.

Mimì & Teo and… The Magic Horn

Impressions… on Ravel and Debussy

Among the most beloved titles in the French repertoire for their melodic invention and the natural flow of dramatic progression, Faust by Charles Gounod has been absent from the stage of the Teatro alla Scala since 2010. The new production, a co-production with the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, the Staatsoper in Berlin and the Teatro Real in Madrid, marks the return of conductor Daniele Rustioni, who is about to conclude his tenure as Principal Conductor at the Opéra de Lyon and has not conducted at La Scala since Il Trovatore in 2014. It also marks the debut of director Johannes Erath, a musician by training, whose production of Ermione for the 2024 Rossini Festival won the Italian music critics’ prestigious Abbiati Award for Best Production. On stage, some of the most beloved artists by the La Scala audience: Marina Rebeka, who will bring Norma by Bellini back to Milan in 2025, and Alex Esposito, an artist with an ever-expanding repertoire.

Faust

L'elisir d'amore for Children

Teo is having some trouble with his La Scala report card: he just can’t seem to understand opera! What he needs is an artificial intelligence… a robot capable of showing him a different perspective on music. But watch out for those notes!

Mimì & Teo and… The Jazz Robot!

In the spirit of Stravinsky, timeless masterpieces, pinnacles of art and dance that have made history. A unique, highly anticipated event: for the first time, La Scala, its artists, and its audience will be overwhelmed by the telluric force of one of the most powerful readings of Le Sacre du printemps, the one created by Pina Bausch in 1975 for the Tanztheater Wuppertal. Emotional rawness, of rare expressionist power, earthy and dramatic in the viscerality of an ancient ritual, a true foundation of contemporary dance. Fundamental to 20th-century ballet is Apollo, which opens the evening, in the brilliance of Balanchine’s style, which in 1928, at the age of 24, achieved international recognition and began his lifelong partnership with the composer.