Milan’s Scala sprayed with paint by environmental activists

In the latest in a series of protests to alert the public to climate change and as the Italian media spotlight shines on La Scala ahead of the season-opening gala, environmental activists sprayed paint on Wednesday, December 7, the entrance to the prestigious opera house in the capital of Lombardy.

Five activists from the Last Generation movement intervened at dawn, and two of them unfurled banners that read “Last Generation – no gas and no coal”. “We have decided to spray La Scala with paint to ask the politicians who will attend tonight’s performance to stop playing ostrich politics and intervene to save the population”explained Last Generation in a press release.

Police quickly arrived on the scene – where sprays of hot pink, electric blue and turquoise paint had splattered the sidewalk – and the activists were arrested. A cleaning team from La Scala then hosed down the building.

The Head of Government, Giorgia Meloni, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are among the many personalities expected at this gala evening scheduled for the premiere of the opera Mussorgsky Boris Godunov.

“The situation is getting worse day by day”

“The economic and environmental situation is getting worse day by day”continues Last Generation, referring to “the tragic situation of the Italian people, affected by the cataclysm of Ischia and betrayed by the indifference of the government”. A landslide, caused by very heavy rains on November 26 on the island of Ischia, killed 12 people.

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Last Generation activists have in recent weeks targeted works of art in European museums in protests intended, they say, not to damage the works, but to draw attention to the environmental disaster. They targeted masterpieces, such as the pearl girlby Johannes Vermeer in a museum in the Netherlands, death and lifeby Gustav Klimt at the Leopold Museum in Vienna or The sunflowersby Vincent Van Gogh at the National Gallery in London.

Last month, at an exhibition in Milan, they also floured a car repainted by Andy Warhol.

The World with AFP

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