La Scala makes its traditional opening Tuesday. “The opening performance – always on December 7, the feast day of Milan’s patron saint, St Ambrose – is an opportunity for the rich and powerful to network, and an excuse for others to protest. It is customarily too the pretext for a shock and awe display of furs, jewels and cleavage. But not since 1946, when Toscanini lifted his baton to reopen the theatre after it was damaged by allied bombs in the second world war, has there been quite such a sense of occasion as this year. Almost everyone who is anyone in Italy will be there.”