Name: The Nutcracker Method
Start: 2025-12-22T16:00:00
Location: Teatro alla Scala

Giovanni Emanuele Urso

Marco Toro

Francesco Muraca

Gianni Massimo Arfacchia

Francesco Tamiati

Elisa Lombardi

Valerio Vantaggio

Alessandro Ferrari

Salvatore La Porta

Piero Mangano

Giulia Montorsi

Daniele Morandini

Fabiano Fiorenzani

Giuseppe Grandi

Javier Castaño Medina

Antonello Cancelli

Mario Acampa

Teatro alla Scala

Members of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra

The next Music Director of the Teatro alla Scala, Myung-Whun Chung, reaches his eleventh opera title at La Scala (having conducted over 140 concerts both at home and on tour) with this new production of Bizet’s Carmen, a co-production with London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Madrid’s Teatro Real. Well-versed in French music—also through his work with the Opéra Bastille and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France—Chung leads a cast that is perfectly idiomatic. Alongside Clémentine Margaine in the title role, alternating with Stéphanie d’Oustrac, and Giorgi Manoshvili as Escamillo, the production features Vittorio Grigolo as Don José—a major Italian voice with a strong affinity for the French repertoire— alternating with Matthew Polenzani. Damiano Michieletto and set designer Paolo Fantin reduce local colour to a minimum in order to construct a bare and effective spectacle, focused on the ineluctable fate of the protagonists.

Carmen

A milestone in the history of musical theater, born from the encounter between the sensibilities of Italian melodrama and the Gothic atmospheres of Walter Scott's novel, Lucia di Lammermoor is conceived by director Yannis Kokkos, who created this production in 2003 under the baton of Riccardo Chailly, as a merciless hunt whose victim is driven to the depths of madness, evoked by Donizetti with the diaphanous sound of the glass harmonica. The revival is entrusted to an expert conductor in bel canto, Speranza Scappucci, who made her debut at La Scala with Bellini's I Capuleti ei Montecchi .

Lucia di Lammermoor

A milestone in the history of musical theatre, Lucia di Lammermoor was born from the encounter between the sensibility of Italian melodrama and the gothic atmosphere of Walter Scott’s novel. Director Yannis Kokkos, who originally staged this production in 2023 under the baton of Riccardo Chailly, sees the opera as a ruthless hunt in which the victim is driven toward the depths of madness—evoked by Donizetti through the ethereal sound of the glass harmonica. The revival is entrusted to Speranza Scappucci, a conductor well-versed in bel canto, who made her La Scala debut with Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. The cast features distinguished voices: alongside the leads—Rosa Feola, Pene Pati, and Boris Pinkhasovich—is Michele Pertusi as a commanding Raimondo.

Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote returns to the stage, a flagship production of the La Scala Ballet Company since 1980, when the famous ballet entered the repertoire with Nureyev himself in the lead alongside Carla Fracci. With its lively energy and the warm colours of the production by Raffaele Del Savio and Anna Anni, it will transport the audience with freshness, joy, virtuosity, and rich choreography to a captivating Spain, featuring gypsy dances, fandangos, matadors, windmills, and the suspended candour of the Garden of the Dryads. Set to Minkus’ immediate music, the adventures of Don Quixote and his loyal squire Sancho Panza intertwine, or rather serve as the backdrop for a love story and an evening of sparkling, temperamental dance, with amusing secondary roles and virtuosic leading parts. Through escapades, deceptions, and disguises, Don Quixote will dance with his Dulcinea, while the young Kitri and the barber Basilio will realise their dream.

Don Quixote

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

It’s Christmas morning in Milan, and Mary, the young girl from Hoffmann’s famous tale, has now grown into a young woman in search of happiness and, perhaps, her Nutcracker…