The dynamic role played by planning infrastructure in enhancing collaboration: evidence from La Scala Opera House

This paper investigates the dynamic role played by planning infrastructure to enhance collaboration within the performing arts sector. Unfolding programming at La Scala Theatre, we study the role the Calendar plays in mitigating the aesthetic-economic tensionsthat arise during the proceedings to translate a projected opera into an opera the goes into full production (an objective opera). This Calendar is first introduced as an infrastructure, but it becomes a boundary object when the groups of people working permanently at the theatre, put into play resource obligations that have to be taken into account during the realization of the opera. These resource obligations led to collaboration among the various groups. During the phase in which an opera became an objective undertaking, the collective commitment (or obligation) towards the success of the opera stimulated collaboration, but this was not reciprocated by the individual singers due to their over-engagement with the desire to achieve success