John Williams at La Scala. A crazy evening between puppets and lightsabers

“Sorry guys, if you let us pass”. The very small representation of boomers sitting in the coveted side seats of the Teatro alla Scala stalls, she gets up amazed and even amused: a group of punks, blue crests, nailheads take their seats in the row. Behind us, two girls look around a bit bewildered in green and red velvet evening dresses and black studded boots. They wanted to respect the sacredness of the place without renouncing everyday style: perhaps their mother had told them, that you go to La Scala in evening dress, they anticipated the New Year’s theme. They photograph themselves as much as I can. The neighbor is a Portuguese student of creative technologies for cinema: he studies in Milan, but it was in Lisbon when he learned, by word of mouth, of the concert in single date by John Williams. She paid the over one hundred euro ticket without a word, she is happy to see “this great theatre, it’s really great” for the first time. We could ask the same question to all the occupants of the two thousand and thirty seats available, we would get the same answer: what a beautiful place, what a beautiful program, yes it is the first time.

Those who take the example of the Spanish opera houses that have placed to attract young audiences the dj in the post show foyerfirst the Trovatore and then the techno, they didn’t understand that there is a third way to make great music known to the concert audience, and that film music is an excellent viaticum. It is not known how it went, perhaps with a word of mouth, what is certain is that the tickets for the concert of the greatest living composer of film music, ninety years, twenty-five Grammy Awards, fifty-two Oscar nominations (absolute record, second only to Walt Disney), five statuettes won (“Fiddler on the Roof”, “Jaws”, “Star Wars IV”, “ET”, “Schindler’s List”) they had sold out two-minutes-two after they went on saletwo months ago.

For days, the elegant concierge in via Filodrammatici was invaded by puppets of the Jedi and Darth Vader with requests for autographs or simple adoring messages: “We love you John”. When eight o’clock starts, the rule of punctuality always applies, the public in the gallery is practically hanging from the columns as in the film “Casa Ricordi” for the revolutionary Va’ Pensiero. Williams enters the room and it’s a roar: the concert audience also behaves at La Scala as they would in the San Siro lawn and leaps to their feet: standing ovations of happiness, the music after. They don’t take pictures reluctantly and after pressing invitations. If they sit down between one performance and another it is out of that kind of pop respect that the audience of the “premières” does not know: the “candy lady”, as Riccardo Muti defines the skiers who spend their time clearing their throats and unwrapping bonbons, it’s simply not there. Actually no, there’s one, at the interval she says that she hasn’t enjoyed herself like this for years. “Hook”, “Rebels at Heart”, “Harry Potter” (“the best English export character since the Beatles” says Williams who occasionally takes the microphone, and everyone, literally everyone, understands English and laughs in time, see all these English lessons that have been used for something?).

When the concertmaster of the Philharmonic Francesco De Angelis closes “Schindler’s List” theme solooriginally written for Itzhak Perlman, glitters appear everywhere (“working on this film was a daunting challenge”, Williams said days ago: “Nothing can be good enough for a story like this. I told Spielberg that he needed a better composer me for this film, and Spielberg told me I was right, but they were all dead”).

The orchestra, which has invited the maestro and is referred to as “brothers and sisters”, plays participatory and amused as we’ve never seen it before: it smiles. “ET”, “Superman”, “Indiana Jones” (the new episode is about to arrive: “I said to myself, if Harrison Ford can act at seventy-eight, I can write music too, who am much older than him”). He also enjoys himself who in his life has directed the Berliner and the Wiener, often with great soloists such as Anne Sophie Mutter, composed hymns and music for every occasion, with a humility often unknown on that stage. He explains, tells anecdotes, talks about his new film with Spielberg “to which it is practically impossible to say no” (“the Fabelmans”, in theaters from 22 December).

When attacking with the Star Wars ending themewhich actually recalls the Elgar of Pomp and Circumstances but objectively for the better, among the armchairs there are – we swear – two colored toy swords. At the encore, to the tune of Darth Vader’s theme, people jump. Even the smell has changed in the dining room: it’s hard to say because it’s a bit of a self-denunciation, but you don’t smell youthful pheromones at La Scala often.