Riccardo Chailly arrives in London this week for three concerts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, his last touring engagements with the ensemble he steps down from this season. The focus on his music-making in the coming years will be Milan’s Teatro alla Scala whose Music Director he becomes in January 2017 (he is currently Principal Conductor).

James Jolly went to Milan this summer where Chailly was conducting Puccini’s Turandot in Luciano Berio’s completion (a work that Chailly premiered in 2002) to talk to him about his ambitions for the great Italian opera house and some of the composers whose work is central to the company’s repertoire.