Carlo Maria Badini, 81; credited with ending La Scala deficit streak

Carlo Maria Badini, 81, a former superintendent of Milan’s La Scala who scandalized opera buffs by introducing commercial activities to save the storied Italian theater from financial difficulties, died Thursday in his native Bologna.

Born in 1925, Badini was superintendent at La Scala from 1977 to 1990 after heading the Teatro Comunale in Bologna.

Opera purists were upset when the name of the first commercial sponsor appeared on La Scala’s playbills and when television cameras entered the 18th-century theater to record productions for broadcast around the world.

But Badini’s managerial approach was credited with ending a long streak of deficits at the financially troubled La Scala, with keeping artistic standards high by working with top directors, including Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti and with creating La Scala’s Philharmonic Orchestra.