World Travel Guide

City Guide  - Milan  - Culture
Culture

Milan's cultural scene boasts interesting and diverse offerings for classical purists, as well as for those interested in the avant-garde. A visit to La Scala will never be forgotten and should be top of the billing for foreign visitors. Italian speakers should not ignore the stage too, as the Piccolo Theatre offers excellent performances year round and has become one of the city's best-known cultural institutions next to La Scala. Listings are best obtained from the Corriere della Sera (web site: www.vivimilano.it) on Wednesday. The free monthly information programme Milano Mese again has listings and is available from the tourist information office and from most hotels.

Music:
Opera lovers know the Teatro alla Scala (tel: (02) 72 00 37 44; web site: www.lascala.milano.it), or La Scala for short, the world over. Tickets are hard to come by close to performances, but one trick is to queue outside at least one hour in advance for the 200 standing-room tickets sold for L10,000 about 30 minutes beforehand.

Milan's respected symphony orchestra, the Orchestra Verdi, founded in 1993 and conducted by Riccardo Chailly, frequently performs concerts in the Auditorium di Milano, Corso San Gottardo. Performances take place on Thursday and Friday at 2030 and on Sunday afternoon at 1600. Tickets cost L40,000-80,000 (tel: (02) 83 38 92 01; web site: www.orchestrasinfonica.milano.it).

Another illustrious venue for classical concerts is the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi, Via Conservatorio 12. Tickets for the Cantelli Orchestra, which play at the Conservatory, can be booked (tel: (02) 655 391; web site: www.orchestracantelli.it) and cost from L50,000.

Theatre:
Milan has become a driving force behind Italian drama since the foundation of the Teatro Piccolo by Giorgio Strehler and Paolo Grassi in 1947. The company puts on a wide repertory of international, classical and experimental drama in three different theatres. Audiences can choose between programmes for the Teatro Grassi in Via Rovello, the experimental theatre Teatro Studio in Via Rivoli and the new Teatro Strehler in Largo Greppi. The box office is at Via Rovello 2 (tel: (02) 72 33 32 22; web site: www.piccoloteatro.org).

Dance:
The home of classical ballet in Milan is at La Scala, also base for its renowned ballet school, the Scuola di ballo del Teatro alla Scala, Via Verdi 1 (tel: (02) 877 995).
Film:
Italians share a great passion for the cinema and Milan city centre has over 20 cinemas. Luchino Visconti's masterpiece Rocco and his Brothers, starring Alain Delon, was filmed extensively around Milan and along the Naviglio Grande. The area around Corso Vittorio Emmanuele is a good spot for cinemas with the latest releases, such as Ambasciatori (tel: (02) 76 00 33 06). For art movies, Cineteca Museo, Palazzo Dugnani, Via Manin 2/A (tel: (02) 655 4977) is a good option.

Cultural events:
Milan always has a series of events and minor festivals going on somewhere in the city. For information, the commune of Milan's web site (www.commune.milano.it) is regularly updated. There are usually a number of jazz, theatre and dance spectacles to be found around the city during the summer months, particularly in July. Visitors should not ignore the religious festivals as these traditional festivals are often Milan's best loved and most charming. Visitors will discover that the Milanesi are particularly fond of Christmas, beginning with the celebrations on 7 December with the Festival of O Bej, O Bej and finishing with the Procession of the Corteo dei Re Magi on Ephiphany, 6 January.

In 2001, the major cultural centre, the Palazzo Triennale, located on the western flank of the Parco Sempione, hosts a major international exposition of the Arts, as it does every three years (tel: (02) 724 341; web site: www.triennale.it).

Literary Notes

Modern Milan is a major centre for the publishing industry and not surprisingly retains a keen interest in literature. Visitors to the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II may happily wile away an hour or two over a coffee as they explore the bookshops Zanichielli and Ricordi. Academics are sure to head to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, next to the Art Gallery, to study the writings of Leonardo da Vinci and other historic texts in its important collection. Alessandro Manzoni is the best-known Milanese author. His novel, The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi, 1827), is a tale of two lovers set against times of war and pestilence in Lombardy during the 1620s. Many Italian authors have since ended up in Milan, including the 1959 Nobel Literary Prize winner, Salvatore Quasimodo, a Sicilian poet who is buried in Milan's Monumental Cemetery. The most important Italian literary event of the year, the Bagutti Prize, originated in Milan's Via Bagutti, where the founders of the Literary Review (Fiera Letteraria) used to eat and where they founded the prize in 1925.



Copyright © 2001 Columbus Publishing
    
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