10-23 March 2005. Conducted by Riccardo Muti, directed by Giancarlo Cobelli, with Tatiana Serjan, Brigitte Pinter, Ludovic Tzier and Ildebrando DArcangelo.

The second opera to be performed at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, after its opening, is made of two single-act works: Sancta Susanna by Paul Hindemith and Il Dissoluto assoluto by Azio Corghi (10-23 March). Neither of the works has ever been performed at the theatre. When Sancta Susanna was performed for the first time in Frankfurt in 1922, it caused a great scandal. It is the story of a friar who cannot resist his erotic pulsations, doesnt demonstrate any repentance, and voluntarily accepts to being walled up alive, as punishment for his own culpable desires. Hindemith refused to recognize its authorship, taking it out of his catalogue; Sancta Susanna, nevertheless, is one of the best creations of German expressionism, with an orchestration that is rich in inventions. Il dissoluto assolto is also a novelty, which the Teatro alla Scala commissioned from composer Azio Corghi and from Nobel prize-winner Jos Saramago. It is a re-reading of Don Giovanni by Mozart, where the protagonists are seen from a new perspective. The conducting has been entrusted to the technical and stylistic rigour of Riccardo Muti, while the director is Giancarlo Cobelli, an artist inclined to explore the obscure angles of the human psyche. Paolo Di Nicola