Milan & La Scala — The World's Greatest Stage

The Theatre

The House That Made Opera What It Is

Teatro alla Scala is not simply the world’s most famous opera house — it is the institution that shaped what opera became. Built in 1778 on the orders of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, on the site of a demolished church named Santa Maria alla Scala, the theatre opened on 3 August of that year with a production commissioned specifically for the occasion: Antonio Salieri’s L’Europa riconosciuta. It has never stopped commissioning greatness since.

The relationship between La Scala and Giuseppe Verdi is one of the defining stories of 19th-century culture. It was here, in 1842, that Nabucco — Verdi’s third opera — ignited an audience already trembling with the patriotic passions of the Risorgimento. The chorus Va, pensiero became, overnight, the unofficial anthem of Italian unification.

Arturo Toscanini made La Scala the finest opera house in the world during his tenures between 1898 and 1929. He was followed by Victor de Sabata, who in 1951 conducted the sessions that produced Maria Callas’s legendary recording of La Traviata. Callas herself declared La Scala her artistic home throughout the 1950s.

Destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943, La Scala was rebuilt and reopened on 11 May 1946 — with Toscanini himself returning to conduct. Claudio Abbado (1968–1986) and Riccardo Muti (1986–2005) continued the tradition of transformative musical direction. Today, La Scala remains — by any measure — the supreme institution of the operatic world.

Ballet at La Scala

Where Dance Becomes Mythology

The Ballet of Teatro alla Scala is one of the five or six finest ballet companies in the world. Founded in 1778 — the same year as the theatre itself — it is home to the Scuola di Ballo, the oldest ballet academy in Italy.

The current season presents a programme of exceptional range: the triple bill of McGregor, Maillot & Naharin, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Christopher Wheeldon, and the La Scala Academy Ballet School Show.

To see ballet at La Scala is to see it in the house that, more than any other, understands what dance can do when given its full dignity and resources.

Classical Concerts

The Orchestra of La Scala. The Finest Soloists in the World.

The Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala and the Filarmonica della Scala stand among the great orchestras of the world. The 2026 concert season brings Myung-Whun Chung, Michele Mariotti, the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Igor Levit, and Arcadi Volodos in a solo recital of shattering authority.

Baritone Luca Salsi and tenor Francesco Meli perform a Verdi and Puccini recital; countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński brings Baroque music to life with vocal beauty unlike anything heard before. To attend a concert at La Scala is to hear music at the absolute summit of human capability.