It was 7 December 1951 and the great Victor De Sabata had decided that that year the premiere at La Scala would be on the day of Sant’Ambrogio, patron saint of Milan, rather than the usual 26 December. Opening the season was Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani. On the podium the director from Trieste, with the “Freudian” Herbert Graf directing.
La Scala has become one of the premier opera houses in Europe.
In the role – still plentiful at the time – of Duchess Elena, that evening there was a young and very promising American soprano of Greek origin, who had made her debut on the Milanese stage a year earlier, replacing Renata Tebaldi in Aida… There is a need for name it? It was Maria Kalogeropoulos, aka Maria Callas.
Since then it has been tradition: the very social (sometimes highly contested) evening is held on December 7th.
