La Scala’s gala premiere of ‘Don Carlo’ celebrates Italian opera’s new status as cultural treasure

MILAN (AP) — Italian melodrama’s official recognition as a global cultural treasure was celebrated Thursday with La Scala’s season premiere of Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” an opera that hits hot-button topics of power and oppression. In keeping with a La Scala tradition of off-stage melodrama, the issue of who would occupy the royal box at the Milan opera house on opening night spawned a pre-performance kerfuffle. La Scala’s unions protested the institutional seat of honor going to Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa in the absence of Italy’s president and premier. La Russa, a far-right politician whom the unions claim has not condemned Italy’s fascist past, sat in the front row of the adorned royal box with Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala, a…