Few operagoers still button up tuxedos or roll on elbow-length gloves for a performance, as many venues have relaxed their dress codes. But tank tops, flip-flops and shorts? That’s where Teatro alla Scala, the storied Milan opera house commonly known as La Scala, draws the line.
The venue is stepping up the enforcement of its dress code this summer, reminding patrons via signs in the foyer to dress “in keeping with the decorum of the theater.” The underdressed will not be allowed inside, according to its policy, which is also printed on tickets, nor will they be reimbursed.
“In order not to exclude anyone, it is necessary to establish some minimum rules,” Paolo Besana, a La Scala spokesman, wrote in an email.
La Scala is the latest European opera to find itself in a sartorial bind as it tries to both court younger patrons and maintain the frisson of a fancy experience.
“For people who go to the opera occasionally, it is — by definition — something of an occasion,” said John Allison, the editor of Opera With Opera News, who said he had no personal issue going in jeans. “That can be interpreted however people like.”
Some think the concern is overplayed. “The only clothes that matter in any opera house or theater are the ones on the stage,” Andrew Mellor, a roving critic, wrote in an Instagram message.
Others say the main consideration is respect. “An opera house is not a beach,” said Manuel Brug, the music critic for the German newspaper Die Welt. But, he added, “I don’t care if anyone has jeans and sneakers, at least if they are proper.”
Elsewhere in Europe, the Vienna State Opera warns that it may bar admission to people in flip-flops, “very short shorts” or undershirts, and adds, “Many of our guests take the opportunity to dress elegantly for their visit.”
In Britain, the English National Opera discourages only big headwear, which can block other people’s view. The Royal Ballet and Opera tells patrons to be “fully clothed,” cover their feet and torso, and avoid clothing with offensive words or images. And even the Glyndebourne Festival is distancing itself from its black-tie reputation. “There are no rules,” its guidance reads, with one caveat: “Given the perils of the British weather, it is advisable to bring an additional warm layer.”
The Staatsoper in Berlin is sterner, reminding patrons that although the venue doesn’t have a dress code, “art merits respect, and this may also be shown in proper clothing.”
Patrons at the Metropolitan Opera in New York have gone in the other direction in recent years, with tastemakers stunting on its staircase. The company also runs Last Night at the Met, an Instagram account celebrating looks.
That split, said Vivien Schweitzer, the author of “A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera,” could be partly down to a key factor: air conditioning.
“It might be less to do with the dress code than just the sheer frigid temperature of the inside,” she said, “whereas in many European venues in the summer, you are just absolutely sweltering.”
La Scala dropped its jacket-and-tie expectation in the sweaty summer of 2015, when Milan hosted a world’s fair. By then, Besana said, the decades-old edict was already being “increasingly ignored” anyway.
In the past decade, standards have slipped again, according to a La Scala “survival guide” in its in-house magazine, which the company posted on Facebook on Monday.
“We know that in Italy the rules are not abolished, replaced or amended,” lamented its author, Alberto Mattioli. “They simply evaporate.”
La Scala has perhaps a unique challenge among major European opera houses because it is such a popular destination in Milan. That means that it caters to tourists who may have never been to an opera or who have already spent a long, sweaty day touring the city. And it may be because the venue’s previous artistic director and chief executive, Dominique Meyer, overlooked the guidelines because he wanted everyone to feel welcome.
During his younger years in Paris, he recalled in an interview, he was “poor but clean” and loved attending the opera. Once, a woman saw him and said, “I didn’t know that the workers were allowed to come.”
“I always think about that,” said Meyer, who took over La Scala in 2020 and stepped down in early 2025. Of today’s patrons, he added: “If they love opera and music, they can also wear whatever poor clothes. I don’t care.”
Those who miss the message about the opera’s dress code don’t necessarily have to miss the show. The ushers at La Scala have been known to advise transgressors in a quintessential Milanese way: by telling them to go shopping.
Still, Besana said that most patrons dressed appropriately, noting that cellphone use during performances was a much bigger problem.
“One should not have the feeling that hordes of people come to La Scala in underwear,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message. “We are talking about maybe 0.5 percent, less than one person per night.”
“We don’t need a revolution,” he added, “just a little correction.”
Amelia Nierenberg is a breaking news reporter for The Times in London, covering international news.
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