La Scala head to take over Paris opera

PARIS - Agence France-Presse

The Paris National Opera will be headed by La Scala’s former director.

The head of Milan’s La Scala is to take charge of the Paris National Opera in 2015, the culture ministry said on yesterday, after its current director said he was leaving over budget cuts.

La Scala general director Stephane Lissner, a 59-year-old Paris native, will take over the Paris National Opera in September 2015 as a replacement for current director Nicolas Joel, the ministry said.

The partially state-funded Paris National Opera is the umbrella organization that runs operations at both Paris’s traditional Garnier Palace opera, inaugurated in 1875, and the new Bastille opera opened in 1989.

Joel, who has been with the group since 2009, told newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche on Oct. 7 that he would not seek a new mandate in 2015 because of state budget cuts that will have “very bad consequences on the artistic program” of the opera.