Anorexia at La Scala: here’s the other side of the argument

The La Scala anor­exia scan­dal rolls on…

Valeria Crippa, in Italy’s Cor­ri­ere della Sera, has been listen­ing to the other side of the argu­ment, as sacked dan­cer Mari­afrancesca Gar­rit­ano’s accus­a­tions against the theatre and its school echoes around the world.

Luisa Vinci, dir­ector of the La Scala Academy (which includes depart­ments of dance and music):

This scan­dal has hit us like a rock, and we worry about the psy­cho­lo­gical effects it may have on our students. Sadism? We have imposed a lan­guage to be used by our teach­ers which is par­tic­u­larly respect­ful of the feel­ings of teen­agers. Those who did not fol­low these guidelines were removed.”

The chil­dren are mon­itored by a series of tests to ascer­tain their state of health, and any prob­lems are repor­ted to the academy’s dir­ect­ors and doctors. Families are con­tinu­ously updated via email, especially if the par­ents live in other regions.”

Omar De Bar­to­lomeo, an orthopaedist:

Anor­exia is a ser­i­ous psy­cho­lo­gical disorder, not simply weight loss. It’s intol­er­able to read that one dan­cer in five is anorexic. I’ve worked for La Scala since 1999 and have seen only two cases. With amen­or­rhea the girls are imme­di­ately repor­ted to the Mangiagalli Clinic [a spe­cial­ist clinic in Milan] and given rest from train­ing. I see the stu­dents every day: for the girls, in par­tic­u­lar, I reg­u­larly update the cal­cu­la­tion of the per­cent­ile of body weight and foot size to verify that the point show is suitable.”

Frédéric Olivieri, dir­ector of the Bal­let School:

Since I took office, I asked of every­one the utmost transparency. I spend my day among the chil­dren and my door is always open.”

La Scala com­pany dancers:

We can­not sup­port a cam­paign against the theater and the world of dance in general.”

The stu­dents, says Crippa, eat together in the self-service canteen, and the only diet­ary advice is not to exag­ger­ate with the carbohydrates. So far the theatre has decided not to pur­sue legal action to claim dam­ages from Gar­rit­ano, but says that cer­tainly dam­age to their repu­ta­tion  has been done.

Photo: from left, De Bartolomeo, Olivieri and Vinci