La Scala, Chung new music director until 2030

Myung-Whun Chung will be La Scala's new music director once Riccardo Chailly's contract expires in 2026. The theatre's superintendent Fortunato Ortombina made the proposal for the South Korean maestro today during the unanimously accepted board meeting. Chung will lead La Scala until 2030.

The communiqué specifies that Ortombina's indication of Chung is the result of the 'appropriate contextual verifications at the theatre' made since he took office last February. For the post of music director to replace Chailly, the hypothesis of maestro Daniele Gatti had also circulated in recent weeks. Superintendent Ortombina also submitted the programme for the 2025/2026 season to the Foundation's Board of Directors. The calendar - which will be presented to the media and subscribers at a press conference on 26 May - includes 13 opera and 7 ballet titles, as well as an intense programme of concerts and events for a total of 250 performances in the calendar year 2026.

Over the years, Chung has developed a particularly close relationship with the Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala, as well as with the La Scala Philharmonic, which appointed him its conductor emeritus, the first maestro to hold this position. He is also one of the most popular artists with the Milanese public, as witnessed by the outcome of the concerts on 17, 19 and 21 March. In this he is similar to his maestro, Carlo Maria Giulini, who directed the Filarmonica's first tours. It is no coincidence that Maestro Chung was the star of one of La Scala's last international opera tours, conducting Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 2016, while a new orchestral tour to Asia will be announced soon.

Chung, who in addition to being a conductor is active as a pianist, has been a constant presence on La Scala's programme in Milan and on tour since 1989, conducting nine opera titles, for 84 performances, and 141 concerts (again, he is the Maestro with the highest number of appearances apart from music directors). A leading Verdi conductor, he has distinguished himself at La Scala for the breadth of his repertoire: Indeed, he has conducted works by Dmitrij Šostakovič (A Lady Macbeth of the District of Mcensk, 1992), Richard Strauss (Salome, 1995), Giacomo Puccini (Madama Butterfly, 2007), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Idomeneo, 2009), Giuseppe Verdi (Simon Boccanegra, 2016 and 2018; Don Carlo, 2017; La traviata, 2019), Carl Maria von Weber (Der Freischütz, 2017) and Ludwig van Beethoven (Fidelio, 2018).

On tour, Chung led the Philharmonic in Italy and abroad. His past appointments include principal guest conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle (the first ever to hold this position); honorary music director of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Paris and the Kbs (Korean Broadcasting System), plus his recent appointment as Artistic Director of the new Busan Opera and Concert Hall in South Korea. Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli also commented on the appointment, saying that La Scala 'has the total right and autonomy of choice. I do not intervene in this'.