Liège or La Scala? – Part 2: We Walk on Holy Ground
by Mark Montgomery
“Have you been to La Scala” Asks my new friend. His roll collar jumper makes him look more than Ernest Hemmingway than ever before.
“I have been to Milan many times” I clear my throat. “But La Scala….I couldn’t even afford La Loggionne!”
“Same for me” he chuckles. “La Scala translates as “The Staircase” he says, “Did you know that?”
The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778. Originally, it was known as il Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala – the New Royal Ducal Theatre at the Scala. It was erected on the location of a church. The name ‘La Scala’ comes from the church of Santa Maria alla Scala. It used to stands on the same site. This church was so called because it was founded, in 1300, by Regina della Scala, of the noble della Scala family of Verona. The inaugural performance at this concert hall was a performance by Antonio Salieri.
Antonio Salieri, a mere six years older than Mozart, for reasons unknown, does not invade the mind with the same romantic vision of a rebel-genius, as does that of his younger rival. Yet, Salieri was one of the dominant catalysts in the development of late 18th-century opera. This kapellmeister helped to mould and manufacture many of the building blocks of the operatic compositional vocabulary.
La Scala
Anronio Scalieri
The Teatro La Scala was lit by thousands of candles for each performance. It will come as no surprise that this incendiary combination of naked flame and wooden structure led to predictable disaster. A fire destroyed the previous theatre, the Teatro Regio Ducale, on 25 February 1776, after a carnival gala. The situation needed to be remedied.
An elite group of ninety wealthy citizens of Milan took on this challenge. They had been the proud owners of private boxes in the theatre. The happy band of brothers wrote to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este asking for a new theatre. The neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini produced an initial design. However, it was rejected by Count Firmian – the governor of the then Austrian Lombardy. A second plan was accepted, in 1776, by Empress Maria Theresa. It is surprising that she had the time to deliberate on these matters. Still, we must be grateful that she prised herself away from her nearly fulltime obsession with persecuting the Jewish population in Prague. The new theatre was built on the former location of the church of Santa Maria della Scala, from which the theatre gets its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished.
The Opera Royal de Wallonie rejoices in a similar ecclesiastical background. The modern-day temple to music stand on Place de L’Opera in the city of Liège. In 1816, King William I of the Netherlands – William of Orange, transferred the land and materials of the former Dominican convent to the city of Liège, on condition that a theatre was there built.
The first stone was laid on 1 July 1818 by Mademoiselle Mars, a singer and socialite from Paris. The edifice was built according to the plan of the architect Auguste Dukers, in the neoclassical style. The theatre has a massive parallelepipedal shape. Its main façade is embellished with a marble colonnade. It is set off by a balustrade that overlooks the arcades on the ground floor.
The building underwent a major renovation of both its exterior and its interior, from March 2009 to September 2012. The historic parts were restored to their original state. The Italian styling was given pride of place. The seating capacity was enhanced to accommodate 1,041 music lovers. The stage machinery was revamped to make it one of the most modern theatres in the world.
The renovated Opéra Royal de Wallonie was inaugurated on 19 September 2012, with a performance of César Franck’s Stradella (1841), staged here for the first time, in a production by Jaco Van Dormael, in the presence of the now king and queen of Belgium.
The packed house and the royals were treated to a state-of-the-art sound system and unrivalled acoustics. As part of the renovation, the sound system was upgraded. The new sound system included 20 KIVA cabinets. Two four-KIVA arrays round out the new design for the 1,440-seat venue.
Opera Royale de Wallonie
