Christian Thielemann gives up the Ring at La Scala, Simone Young replaces him

© Simone Young / Christian Thielemann

At the end of October, La Scala will be staging a new Ring by Wagner (for the first time in ten years), and Christian Thielemann was to conduct it. He has had to withdraw for medical reasons. He will be replaced by Simone Young, the first woman to conduct the Ring at La Scala.

From the end of October this year, La Scala in Milan will launch a new Wagner Tetralogy. A new production of Das Rheingold by David McVicar will open this new Wagner cycle - followed by Die Walküre and Siegfried in 2025, then Twilight of the Gods and two complete cycles in 2026.

That in itself is significant. This will be Teatro alla Scala's third Ring in thirty years, and ten years after Guy Cassiers' production, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. What is more, the cast of this new Das Rheingold includes some of Wagner's finest performers (Michael Volle as Wotan, Johannes Martin Kränzle as Alberich and Okka von der Damerau as Fricka). The Scala Orchestra was due to be conducted by Christian Thielemann, a great specialist in the Wagner repertoire. According to La Scala, this new cycle was to follow in the footsteps of the great Tetralogies conducted from its pit by Toscanini in the 1940s, Victor de Sabata, Clemens Krauss and Wilhelm Furtwängler in the 1950s, then André Cluytens and later Riccardo Muti and Daniel Barenboim.

Christian Thielemann withdraws, Simone Young will be the first woman to conduct the Ring at La Scala

But there has been a change of plan. Christian Thielemann will undergo tendon surgery in October, followed by five weeks of rehabilitation. According to La Scala, "this operation means that he will have to cancel all his forthcoming engagements", including Das Rheingold, which will be performed in Milan from 28 October to 10 November to launch David McVicar's new Ring des Nibelungen. The Opera House continues: "As he is unable to conduct the prologue to the Ring, which is part of a unified artistic approach, Maestro Thielemann has announced his intention to withdraw from the entire project.

So who will replace him? La Scala is looking for a top-class 'replacement': Simone Young will conduct the performances on 28 and 31 October and 3 November, while Alexander Soddy will take over on the evenings of 5, 7 and 10 November. For the record, Simone Young has just triumphed in the Tetralogy at the Bayreuth Festival - already replacing Philippe Jordan. She was the first woman to conduct a Ring in Bayreuth. She will undoubtedly be the first woman to do the same at La Scala.

free translation of our article first published in French

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