SHORT TAKES : Americans Booed at La Scala

American opera singers Chris Merritt and Cheryl Studer drew boos and generally negative reviews after their performance in the opening of La Scala’s season. Merritt, a tenor from Oklahoma City, and Studer, a soprano from Midland, Mich., performed the main roles of Arrigo and Duchess Elena in Giuseppe Verdi’s “I Vespri Siciliani,” an opera set in Sicily.

Although they received some applause during the first part of the opera Thursday night, they were showered with derisive whistles and boos in the final act. The disapproval was so strong that security guards were called to appease the crowd during one of Merritt’s solos. Milan newspapers reported today that many felt the Americans where too “cold” and too “un-Mediterranean, and unconvinced of their role.”

The audience at the gala opening of the La Scala season is notoriously hard to please.