Roberto Alagna Can’t Take The Catcalls
You have to be a real man to sing at La Scala opera house in Milan. A handful of boos from the cheap seats where the opera house’s purists sit in judgment can rattle the nerves of even the he-manliest of singers. Apparently, tenor Roberto Alagna doesn’t have the requisite balls. He has pulled out of a November production of Massenet’s “Werther.” Alagna has a checkered history in Milan. In 2006, the Franco-Sicilian opera divo had one of the most infamous tantrums in musical history when he stormed off stage at La Scala during a production of “Aida.” The cause? A handful of boos from those cheap seats. Alagna later described the hostility of the so-called loggionisti as a humiliating “death blow” which had left him broken-hearted. He has never been back. That was supposed to change this season, under the stewardship of Alexander Pereira, the new general manager of La Scala who is all too aware of the potential of the loggionisti to scare aware talent, remarking in March that they were “the thing that scares [me] most” about taking over the reins of the world’s most famous opera house. As for Alagna, he has just admitted that he pulled out of “Werther” because it was “beyond [his] strength” to take on the loggionisti again.
