Why La Scala is in the red

La Scala Intendant Stéphane Lissner was paid more (a lot more) than anyone else in Italian theatre last year. Whether you believe the 507,000 euros total quoted by La Scala itself or the 817,000 claimed by the Ministry of Culture, the figure (which covers 21 months from 30 November 2012 to 31 August 2014) dwarfs the 300,000 euros paid to his nearest rival Bruno Cagli, who heads up Santa Cecilia. 

Lissner's compensation includes a bonus of 120,000 euros, plus 85,000 euros for renting an apartment. More surprisingly, part of a further amount of 177,338 euros is severance pay - even though Lissner is leaving of his own accord in 2015 to take over the top job at the Paris Opera.

Lissner's not the only one who's milking it. La Scala General Manager Maria Di Freda gets 270,000 euros. Even Lissner's replacement, Alexander Pereira, was handed 50,000 for 'collaborating with the Intendant in planning the 2015-16 season'. 

Music Director Daniel Barenboim's salary of 112,000 euros (excluding conducting fees) looks positively paltry in comparison. As do the pay cheques of most Italian theatre bosses, who typically make do with salaries of 100-200,000 euros or less.

When the leadership delivers that sort of example, is it any wonder La Scala has so much union trouble? 

Comments

[Nik]

How much work does Barenboim do for his 112k if it excludes conducting fees? One suspects that, since the latter are not made public, this is just a piece of clever structuring. If I'm not mistaken, we get a package deal with Pappano, which makes the headline figure larger but is much more transparent.

[inter mezzo]

Planning, casting, media, administration ....... I bet Barenboim spends at least half of his time at La Scala doing things other than conducting.

I don't know how Pappano's contract is structured, but the only reason we know the aggregate figure is because UK company law requires disclosure of all compensation. In fact technically we don't even know that. The ROH accounts reveal only that an unnamed person is paid £800K - the identity of that person is an educated guess.

[Nik]

Yes, I'm sure Barenboim has lots of responsibilities other than conducting (as well as an army of assistants as befits his status). What I meant to say was that they may have opted to give him quite a low fixed salary to make it look like a modest deal and then bung him a gigantic wodge in fees to make up for it.

[SJT]

25 years ago, when Barenboim was meant to be the inaugural MD of the Bastille, his annual contract THEN was worth $1 million equivalent (it caused such a ruckus, and there was such furious politicking apropos, he never took the post up, being sort of summarily sacked, which is why no name conductor - in an act of solidarity - ever conducted there for at least two decades and in a real sense, still never has). Are we to imagine that a quarter-of-a-century later he's worth far, far less? And in Milan?

[Ulisse]

Salonen has conducted T&I there...

U

[SJT]

And you think Salonen is a noted name in the world of opera? And it was recent, too, as the informal ban has slowly broken down over time. But a ban it was: Solti, who was meant to conduct there, and Mehta, refused to set foot in the place, and never did, any more than the significant Italians - Muti, Abbado, Chailly - never have either. The Bastille's history of MDs runs thusly: Chung, Conlon, Jordan. It's not exactly Solti, Davis (who never conducted there) Haitink (ditto) and Pappano (guess?) now is it?