MISDIRECTED REACTIONARY PROTEST
Anti-war protesters in Italy denounce La Scala for staging Russian opera
Story by By Sara Rossi •
Italy's La Scala opens its 2022-23 season in Milan© Thomson Reuters
MILAN (Reuters) - Anti-war protesters demonstrated outside Milan's La Scala theatre on Wednesday before it opened its 2022-2023 opera season with a gala performance of the Russian work "Boris Godunov".
Italy's La Scala opens its 2022-23 season in Milan© Thomson Reuters
Around 20 people waved the Ukrainian flag and held up placards denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine in February.
"Russia must be isolated. We want to be free," said Tatiana Slyusarenko, who is originally from the Ukrainian town of Irpin and has been living in Italy since 2005. She is now hosting her cousin who escaped Irpin when the war broke out.
Italy's La Scala opens its 2022-23 season in Milan© Thomson Reuters
She questioned why La Scala had not changed its programme over the nine months since the war began.
"Russian culture only when the war is over," read one of the placards.
La Scala artistic director Dominique Meyer last month defended its decision to stage the work, written by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in the 19th century, after protests from Ukrainian exile groups.
Meyer said the programme was drawn up three years ago and it could not be viewed as pro-Putin propaganda.
Climate-change activists had earlier thrown paint at the entrance to the famed opera house ahead of the opening night, a highlight of the Italian cultural calendar.
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, President Sergio Mattarella and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were all expected to attend the performance.
Italy's La Scala opens its 2022-23 season in Milan© Thomson Reuters
The three-hour opera, based on a play by Russian writer Alexander Pushkin, recounts the story of Tsar Boris Godunov who went mad and died overwhelmed by guilt over the killing of a young rival for the throne in the late 16th century.
Italy's La Scala opens its 2022-23 season in Milan© Thomson Reuters
(Reporting by Sara Rossi; Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Gavin Jones and Crispian Balmer)
(English: /ˈpʊʃkɪn/;[1] Russian: Александр Сергеевич Пушкин[note 1], tr. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn] (
listen); 6 June [O.S. 26 May] 1799 – 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1837) was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.[2] He is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet[3][4][5][6] and the founder of modern Russian literature.[7][8]
Pushkin was born into the Russian nobility in Moscow.[9] His father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to an old noble family.
MIXED RACE
His maternal great-grandfather was Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a nobleman of African origin who was kidnapped from his homeland and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson.
REVOLUTIONARY
He published his first poem at the age of 15, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.
Upon graduation from the Lycée, Pushkin recited his controversial poem "Ode to Liberty", one of several that led to his exile by Emperor Alexander I. While under the strict surveillance of the Emperor's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov. His novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832.
Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his wife's alleged lover and her sister's husband Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès, also known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment.
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