Teatro degli Arcimboldi La Scala's 2001/2002 opera season. Following La Scala reopening on 7 December 2004, Teatro degli Arcimboldi expanded its program, hosting performances of jazz, classical and pop music. Notes Sources Teatro degli Arcimboldi The Teatro degli Arcimboldi is a theatre and opera house in Milan. It was built over a 27-month period in anticipation of the closure and subsequent nearly three-year-long renovation of Milan's La Scala opera house in December 2001. It is located 4.5 miles from the city centre in a converted Pirelli tire factory, in an area known as Bicocca. Designed by Vittorio Gregotti in collaboration with Mario Botta
La Scala orchestra pit had not yet been built. Above the boxes, La Scala has a gallery—called the "loggione"—where the less wealthy can watch the performances. The gallery is typically crowded with the most critical opera aficionados, known as the loggionisti, who can be ecstatic or merciless towards singers' perceived successes or failures. For their failures, artists receive a "baptism of fire" from these aficionados, and fiascos are long remembered. For example, in 2006, tenor Roberto Alagna was booed off the stage during a performance of "Aida". This forced his understudy, Antonello Palombi, to quickly replace him mid-scene without time to change