The red-and-gold hall
Six tiers of boxes under the great chandelier — music's most famous room.
Jakub Hałun — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Daniel Case — CC BY-SA 3.0
Open the official site the moment a season posts and aim for the upper galleries — starting in tens of euros, not hundreds. Some performances also release last-minute tickets in person hours before.
None special for the museum; smart-casual generally serves for performances — premieres and galas are genuinely formal. Milanese dress up for the evening whatever the written rule.
If a performance falls on your night, the hall alive and lit outclasses any day visit. Otherwise the museum with its box view delivers the essence in an hour — rehearsals permitting.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet — be the first.
La Scala is the world's most famous opera house: since 1778 its stage has premiered the works that make musical history and made the names of singers and conductors — Verdi, bound to it by name, Toscanini, Maria Callas, Pavarotti. Its modest façade is a Milanese trick: the splendour is all within — a red-and-gold hall of six tiers of boxes beneath a chandelier of hundreds of lamps. For visitors not attending, two doors in: the museum, with instruments, portraits and the relics of Verdi and Callas, opening onto box views of the auditorium itself whenever no rehearsal occupies it — the moment standing in a red box is worth the ticket alone. Or the finer boldness: upper-gallery seats for a real performance, sold at genuinely modest prices to early bookers. Its season opens every 7 December — Milan's patron saint's day — the first social event in all Italy.
Six tiers of boxes under the great chandelier — music's most famous room.
Scores, portraits and possessions of the house legend.
Standing in a red box with the hall before you — the visit's peak.
Piazza della Scala, 20121 Milan