Italy's elite arrive for La Scala's gala opening

By Gilles Castonguay

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's political and financial elite arrived at La Scala in their chauffeured cars on Friday to attend a performance of Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" on the opening night of the opera house's new season.

"This is a great moment for music," Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli told reporters before entering the neoclassical theatre in the historic heart of the country's fashion and financial capital.

With tickets costing up to 2,000 euros ($2,911) apiece, the gala event is seen as the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful, with the attending VIPs nearly as important as the performance itself.

Hundreds of bystanders watched behind metal barriers as Italian President Giorgio Napolitano arrived, in formal dress with a white scarf around his neck.

Under the glare of television cameras, the heads of the country's two biggest banks, UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, mingled with hundreds of others in resplendent dress in the chandeliered reception hall before the orchestra began to play under the stewardship of Daniel Barenboim.

Security was tight inside as well as out, with police riding on horseback outside the opera house, and officers with riot helmets standing in the piazza in front of the theatre.

On the other side of the piazza, union workers staged a demonstration, calling for a minute of silence at the beginning of the performance in a show of respect for three workers who died in a steel plant fire earlier this week.

Barenboim, La Scala's main guest conductor, is leading the orchestra through operatic territory that has caused him trouble. In 2001 he was criticised for performing a piece of Wagner in Israel. Wagner was Adolf Hitler's favourite composer.