The article consists in an overview of how Russian scenographers contributed to the theatrical activity of Milan’s Theatre La Scala over the years of Russian emigration. The first artist to be mentioned is Nikolaj Benois, who started to work as scenery designer in Milan in 1925 and was successively appointed Director of Scenic Design in 1937. Having been assigned to such a prestigious post, he was then able to involve a number of Russian painters, including his father Aleksandr - whom the Milanese had known since the time of the “Ballets russes” tours - Grigorij Sciltian and Vsevolod Nikulin, in the setting up of theatre plays based on the Russian classics and almost invariably unpublished in Italy. Creating their scenic design, sketches and figure-plates, Russian scenic artists contributed to changing the attitude of the Milanese audience towards the perception of Russian culture, turning it into a more complex relation and leaving behind any exoticism-related platitude or simplistic view.
