Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Verdi
Encyclopedia
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
located in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, Italy and named after the composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
. Privately constructed, it was inaugurated as the Teatro Nuovo to replace the smaller 800-seat "Cesareo Regio Teatro di San Pietro" on 21 April 1801 with a performance of Johann Simon Mayr's Ginevra di Scozia
Ginevra di Scozia
Ginevra di Scozia is an opera in two acts by Simon Mayr set to an Italian libretto by Gaetano Rossi based on Antonio Salvi's, Ginevra, principessa di Scozia, which in turn was adapted from Cantos 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Ginevra di Scozia premiered on 21 April 1801 at the...
. Initially, the Nuovo had 1,400 seats.
By the end of the 18th century, the need for a new theatre in Trieste became evident. Its main theatre, the Teatro di San Pietro, had become increasingly inadequate and finally closed its doors in 1800. A proposal to the Austrian Chancery from Giovanni Matteo Tommasini to build a private theatre had existed since 1795 and, in June 1798, a contract was drawn up whereby annual funding would come from the municipality and Tommasini would hold the rights to several boxes and the rights to sell others. Gian Antonio Selva
Gian Antonio Selva
Gian Antonio Selva was an Italian neoclassical architect.-Biography:He was born in Venice. His works include Villa Manfrin detta Margherita a Sant'Artemio, near Treviso Gian Antonio Selva (2 September 1751 - 22 January 1819) was an Italian neoclassical architect.-Biography:He was born in...
, the architect of the La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, was engaged, and he designed a classic horseshoe-shaped auditorium. However, his exterior designs were considered to be too plain for the Austrians who then engaged another architect, Matteo Pertsch, to solve the problem, which was accomplished by incorporating elements of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
's La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
opera house. The "Nuovo" became a mixture of La Fenice on the inside and La Scala on the exterior.
History
Several name changes have occurred during the theatre's lifetime, the first in 1821 when it became the Teatro Grande and it was under this name that the theatre was the site of two Verdi opera premieres: Il corsaroIl corsaro
Il corsaro is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Lord Byron's poem The Corsair...
in 1848 (featuring the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi
Giuseppina Strepponi
Clelia Maria Josepha Strepponi was a nineteenth century Italian operatic soprano of great renown and the second wife of composer Giuseppe Verdi...
, who Verdi married in 1859, in the leading role) and Stiffelio
Stiffelio
Stiffelio is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois...
, a production which Verdi supervised - not without controversy - in 1850. However, before these premieres, Verdi's operas had begun to dominate the Teatro Grande's stage, followed, as the century progressed, by all the major works of the opera repertoire, including those by Puccini and Wagner.
A further name change followed in 1861 due to a change from private to public ownership. Thus it became the Teatro Communale and existed as such throughout the latter years of the 19th century. By 1881, seating capacity had been increased to 2,000 through the use of existing standing room spaces; but, by that December, the theatre was declared to be unsafe and it was closed for renovations, during which electricity replaced gas lighting for the reopening in 1889 with 1,000 seats.
Within hours of his death in January 1901, the theatre was once again renamed, this time to honour the memory of Giuseppe Verdi. It was extensively restored between 1992 and 1997 and re-opened with about 1,300 seats and with a Viva Verdi concert which included excerpts from many of the composer's operas. (Like the restoration of La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
between 2001 and 2004, a temporary alternative venue was quickly created in Trieste and the Sala Tripcovich continues to offer space for chamber opera and operettas.)
A major feature of the Teatro Verdi's programming in the past 40 years, which stems from the original Austrian occupation of the city in the 19th century and the fact that Trieste did not become part of Italy until 1918, is the "International Festival of Operetta" which takes place every summer.
Premieres
The theatre has seen the world premieres of the following operas:- Ginevra di Scozia by Simon MayrSimon MayrJohann Simon Mayr , also known in Italian as Giovanni Simone Mayr or Simone Mayr was a German composer.- Life :...
, 21 April 1801 - Annibale in Capua by Antonio SalieriAntonio SalieriAntonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
20 May 1801 - Ricciarda di Edimburgo by Cesare PugniCesare PugniCesare Pugni was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed while serving as Composer of the Ballet Music to Her Majesty's Theatre...
, 29 September 1832. - Enrico II by Otto Nicolai, 26 November 1839
- Il corsaroIl corsaroIl corsaro is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Lord Byron's poem The Corsair...
by Giuseppe VerdiGiuseppe VerdiGiuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, 25 October 1848 - StiffelioStiffelioStiffelio is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois...
by Giuseppe Verdi, 16 November 1850 - Nozze istrianeNozze istrianeNozze istriane is an opera in three acts by Antonio Smareglia to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It premiered on 28 March 1895 at the Teatro Comunale in Trieste.-Roles:-Synopsis:...
by Antonio SmaregliaAntonio SmaregliaAntonio Smareglia was an Austro-Hungarian opera composer of Italian ethnicity.-Life:Antonio Smareglia was born in the town of Pola , in a house on Via Nettuno which still stands and in which there is now a small museum of his life and work...
, 28 March 1895