MILAN – As Teatro alla Scala prepares for its grand gala premiere on Sunday, the iconic venue is set to feature a Russian opera for the second consecutive year since the onset of Moscow’s 2022 incursion into Ukraine. This year, however, the event won’t see protests against Russian culture; instead, a peace-promoting flash mob is on the agenda.

Leading La Scala’s musical charge, Riccardo Chailly will wield the baton for Dmitry Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.” This performance marks the opening of the season, attracting an illustrious gathering of cultural, business, and political figures, making it one of the most eagerly awaited occasions in the European cultural sphere.

The opera, originally composed in 1934 by Shostakovich, sheds light on the plight of women under Stalin’s Soviet regime. It faced censorship mere days after Stalin himself attended a performance in 1936, a year synonymous with his infamous Great Purge, a period marked by intense political oppression.

In a move to underline issues central to the opera’s themes, the Italian left-wing political party +Europa has planned a demonstration outside the theater. As guests arrive, the party aims to spotlight the importance of safeguarding freedom and European democracy, which they believe are currently endangered by Putin’s Russia, while also voicing support for Ukraine.

The party emphasized that Shostakovich’s opera serves as a poignant commentary on the misuse of power and the significance of individual defiance.

Due to security concerns, authorities moved the protest from the square facing La Scala, to another behind City Hall.

Shostakovich’s journey to La Scala gala premiere

Chailly began working with stage director Vasily Barkhatov on the title about two years ago, following the 2022 gala season premiere of the Russian opera “Boris Godunov,” which was attended by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom separated Russia’s politicians from its culture.

But outside the Godunov premiere, Ukrainians protested against highlighting Russian culture during a war rooted in the denial of a unique Ukrainian culture. The Ukrainian community did not announce any separate protests this year.

Chailly called the staging of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth,’ for only the fourth time in La Scala’s history “a must.’’

“It is an opera that has long suffered, and needs to make up for lost time,’’ Chailly told a news conference last month.

La Scala’s new general manager, Fortunato Ortombina, defended the choices made by his predecessor to stage both Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” and Modest Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.”

‘‘Music is fundamentally superior to any ideological conflict,’’ Ortombina said on the sidelines of the press conference. “Shostakovich, and Russian music more broadly, have an authority over the Russian people that exceeds Putin’s own.’’

An American soprano makes her La Scala Debut

American soprano Sara Jakubiak is making her La Scala debut in the title role of Katerina, whose struggle against existential repression leads her to commit murder, landing her in a Siberian prison where she dies. It’s the second time Jakubiak has sung it, after performances in Barcelona, and she said the role is full of challenges.

“That I’m a murderess, that I’m singing 47 high B flats in one night, you know, all these things,’’ Jakubiak said while sitting in the makeup chair ahead of the Dec. 4 preview performance to an audience of young people. “You go, ‘Oh my gosh, how will I do this?’ But you manage, with the right kind of work, the right team of people. Yes, we’re just going to go for the ride.”

Speaking to journalists recently, Chailly joked that he was “squeezing” Jakubiak like an orange. Jakubiak said she found common ground with the conductor known for his studious approach to the original score and composer’s intent.

“Whenever I prepare a role, it’s always the text and the music and the text and the rhythms,” she said. “First, I do this process with, you know, a cup of coffee at my piano and then we add the other layers and then the notes. So I guess we’re actually somewhat similar in that regard.”

Stage direction highlights Stalin’s end

Barkhatov, who has a flourishing international career, called the choice of “Lady Macbeth,” “very brave and exciting.”

Barkhatov’s stage direction sets the opera in a cosmopolitan Russian city in the 1950s, the end of Stalin’s regime, rather than a 19th-century rural village as written for the 1930s premier.

For Barkhatov, Stalin’s regime defines the background of the story and the mentality of the characters for a story he sees as a personal tragedy and not a political tale. Most of the action unfolds inside a restaurant appointed in period Art Deco detail, with a rotating balustrade creating a kitchen, a basement and an office where interrogations take place.

Despite the tragic arc, Barkhatov described the story as “a weird … breakthrough to happiness and freedom.’’

“Sadly, the statistics show that a lot of people die on their way to happiness and freedom,’’ he added.