Performer: Davide Fersini

Daniele Gatti is the winner of the night, managing to draw an astounding outcome from a far from ideal cast.

La Scala might not have had all the right cards in its garter Tuesday night to prevent ending up holding aces and spaces, but it’s hard to play without a full deck in the first place.

“Of all my works, the one that pleases me most is the Casa I’ve had built in Milan to accommodate old singers who have not been favoured by fortune or who did not possess the virtue of thrift in their youth”. This is how Verdi described the retirement home for elderly musicians he founded at the time of the composition of this opera Falstaff.

When Salzburg Festival director Alexander Pereira stepped onto the stage of the Großes Festspielhaus last night to announce that one of the cast members of La bohème was sick and unable to sing, he faced a chorus of hisses from the audience. Soprano Anna Netrebko, the festival’s biggest non-conductor star, was feeling fine (though as Mimì she would shortly die of consumption).