Segre to fill in for Mattarella at La Scala premiere again

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 6 - Holocaust survivor and Life Senator Liliana Segre will, like last year, take President Sergio Mattarella's place in the royal box at this year's La Scala premiere Saturday, the highlight of the Milanese social season and a showcase for Italy's great and good.
    Mattarella, 83, has been forced to forego the event because he will be in Paris for the grand re-opening of Notre-Dame after the fire that devastated the iconic landmark in April 2019.
    Segre, 94, will sit in the box for Verdi's Forza del Destino conducted by Riccardo Chailly.
    She will be flanked by the second highest office of the State, Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa, Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana, Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala. the deputy speaker of the Lower House Anna Ascani and Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli.
    The President of the Constitutional Court Augusto Antonio Barbera, who had initially confirmed his presence, will not after all be in the theatre for the glittering extravaganza.
    The high-society event, which takes place on the saint's day of Milan's patron St Ambrose, is usually met with protests against the rich by anticapitalists and anarchists. (ANSA).