2023-12-08 16:15:28
Top takings, boom in TV ratings and social media booming. It is a success inside and outside the Teatro alla Scala “Don Carlo” by Giuseppe Verdi which opened the 2023/24 season with thirteen minutes of applause, one day after the proclamation by UNESCO of the practice of opera singing in Italy as a heritage immaterial of humanity.
At the premiere of the opera directed by maestro Riccardo Chailly, there were 1,888 audience members in the stalls, boxes and gallery. The total takings for the evening were 2,582,000 euros, 80,000 more than last year, when Modest Petrovic Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” premiered on 7 December 2022. While not a record, ticket sales have returned to historic highs compared to the pre-Covid period.
The show was followed live on Rai 1 – from 6.01pm to 10.28pm – by an audience of 1 million 411 thousand spectators equal to an 8.4% share. Overall there are 9,800,000 contacts, almost ten million people who have intercepted the broadcast of the opera on TV. The evening was anticipated, at 5.45pm, by “Waiting for Don Carlo” with Milly Carlucci and Bruno Vespa which reached 17.2% with 1 million 813 thousand.
The premiere was followed by over 130 accredited journalists from 11 countries who covered the event in print, online, radio and TV.
The Premiere was reported on social media (Instagram/X/Facebook/Tiktok) with the hashtag #PrimaScala, showing not only images of the show and the evening from the foyers but also everything that happens behind the scenes. On Tiktok, followers were able to exclusively watch a live broadcast lasting 1 hour and 20 minutes which began at 5.55pm, showing the backstage with interviews with the workers and all those who contributed to the show (from the choristers to the stage manager, from the chief stagehand to the tailors and make-up artists) and were able to see the choir singing the national anthem from the backstage before going on stage. Here are the numbers: 30,700 views, 28,300 distinct viewers, peak viewers 1,900, 17,900 likes. In the last week the profile gained 12,160 more followers than before.
On Instagram, the backstage of the Premiere was told with 40 stories, reaching 229,436 accounts and 15,954 profile visits. There was an increase in interactions and public involvement compared to last year. On Facebook, La Scala published a series of posts in cross posting with Rai Cultura with the poster of the opera with all the possibilities to watch the show, the national anthem, the live broadcast of the scene change between the first and second act narrated by Giuseppe Tolva and the trailer of the show obtaining a coverage of 364,447 users and 10,622 interactions. On X (ex-Twitter) the hashtag #PrimaScala was among the top 5 trends in Italy. The premiere was covered with 30 tweets and had 153,530 impressions. The Theatre’s website had around 65,000 visits yesterday alone.
“I want to thank Rai Cultura which broadcast the show on Rai 1 for the first time in 4K, guaranteeing Italian and world-wide viewers an unprecedented level of quality – declared the superintendent of La Scala, Dominique Meyer – The Premiere is the moment in where the collective work of the entire Theater is felt more than ever and I would like to extend my thanks, as well as to the Orchestra and Chorus, to all the departments of the La Scala machine, from the stage to the laboratories and offices”.
“We have written another great page of television and culture, as the duty and passion of being a Public Service impose on us – commented the Rai CEO, Roberto Sergio. – Scala and Rai have reiterated with what was staged on the stage and on TV screens – and not only – to be two fundamental institutions for the diffusion of culture in our country”.
“The Prima della Scala is always an exciting challenge – added the director of Rai Cultura Silvia Calandrelli – which this year we faced by further raising the level of quality, thanks to the filming and broadcast in 4k, offering viewers a show never seen before and bringing the beauty of musical theater into the homes of Italians”.
(by Paolo Martini)
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