What’s the opera without a bit of drama? The opening of the La Scala opera season started off with some scandal when general music director of La Scala, Daniel Barenboim, decided to open the season with music by German conductor Richard Wagner. The Italian community has become pretty inflamed that a German composer would be chosen over the work of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi considering 2013 marks the bicentennial anniversary of Verdi’s birth and that state of the Italian economy has been poor (treachery!) In addition, Verdi and Wagner were not the chummiest of colleagues and considered each other rivals. The choice by Director Barenboim was rumored to be the reason why Italian President Giorgio Napolitano didn’t show up at the season premiere of this year’s La Scala; however President Napolitano reassured Barenboim it was due to political business and that he felt the controversy to be “futile.”

On January 15th La Scala will perform a series of Verdi’s operas conducted by Daniel Harding, leading into a season that will also include works by Russian composer Alexander Raskatov and Italian composer Gioachino Rossini.