The Teatro alla Scala has announced its 2015-16 season with a number of new productions and Riccardo Chailly taking over as the music director.

The season will contain 15 productions with a number of the biggest stars in the opera world. The following are the five highlights that should not be missed if you are in Milan.

Giovanna D'Arco

On Dec. 7, the 15-16 season will open with Giuseppe Verdi's work that has not been performed at the theater for over 150 years. The production is even more special as it marks Anna Netrebko's return to La Scala. The soprano has performed the role before but has never performed it in a staged version. She made her role debut in Salzburg in 2013. 

It also marks her first time at the theater since her 2011 debut when she opened the season with Mozart's "Don Giovanni." Netrebko will be joined by Italian tenor Francesco Meli and Spanish baritone Carlos Alvarez. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier will direct the production which will be seen live in movie theaters and on TV. Chailly will conduct the work. The conductor has been one of the biggest supporters of the work as he conducted the famous production by Werner Herzog in Bologna in 1989.

I Due Foscari

Placido Domingo will return to the role that he has made one of his signatures in his late career, Jacopo Foscari. The work by Verdi is one of the unknown early masterworks that Domingo has revived throughout the world and has performed in London and Los Angeles. Domingo will be joined by Meli, Anna Pirozzi and Andrea Concetti. Michelle Mariotti will conduct the run in a new production by Alvis Hermanis, who is best known for his work Salzburg's "Il Trovatore." Luca Salsi will alternate with Domingo in the role of Jacopo Foscari.

La Fanciulla del West

Riccardo Chailly will continue his series dedicated to Puccini that began this year with "Turandot". The series will aim to present new productions of Puccini operas at La Scala. The series is slated to end in 2022. The project will be recorded in audio and video and aims to become the benchmark for Puccini interpretations performances in the new century. The 2015-16 season will continue the series with Puccini's late work, and Chailly will work with the original score. The opera will star Marcelo Álvarez and Eva-Maria Westbroeck and will be directed by Graham Vick.

La Cena delle Beffe

Umberto Giordano's unknown work will return to La Scala after having been inaugurated by Arturo Toscanini in 1924. Mario Martone will direct the new production which will star Kristin Lewis, Marco Berti and Nicola Alaimo. The production will be conducted by Carlo Rizzi, an expert of Italian repertoire and it will be part of a project to bring back the main masterpieces of the Verismo repertoire.

Porgy and Bess

Nikolaus Harnoncourt will conduct George Gershwin's masterpiece. The conductor known for his work in Mozart, Haydn and classical conductors has taken interest in the work as his uncle, a member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Museum, had an encounter with Gershwin, who had been profoundly struck by a meeting with Alban Berg in Vienna at the end of the 1920s and considered Porgy to be "his Wozzeck." For this new production, Harnoncourt has restored all of the original material from the premiere. The new production will be directed by Philipp Harnoncourt and will star Kristin Lewis, Pumeza Matshikiza and Angel Blue.