Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Last updated
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Teatro Comunale Bologna.jpg
Interior of the theatre
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Address Bologna
Italy
Designation Opera house
Construction
Opened1763
Architect Antonio Galli Bibiena
Website
www.tcbo.it

The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season.

Contents

While there had been various theatres presenting opera in Bologna since the early 17th century, they had either fallen into disuse or burnt down. However, from the early 18th century, the Teatro Marsigli-Rossi had been presenting operatic works by popular composers of the day including Vivaldi, Gluck, and Niccolò Piccinni. The Teatro Malvezzi, built in 1651, burned down in February 1745 and this event prompted the construction of a new public theatre, the Nuovo Teatro Pubblico, as the Teatro Comunale was first called when it opened on 14 May 1763.

Design and inauguration

Teatro Comunale di Bologna Piazza Giuseppe Verdi (Bologna) 3.jpg
Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Despite opposition from other competitors, the architect Antonio Galli Bibiena [1] won the theatre design contract. The theatre's inaugural performance was Gluck's Il trionfo di Clelia , an opera which Gluck had composed for the occasion. A bell-shaped auditorium consisting of four tiers of boxes plus a royal box and small gallery with a ceiling decorated as if open to the sky, was built primarily of masonry as a protection against fire. However, much work remained unfinished, the facade in particular which was not completed until 1936. Also, many of the backstage facilities which would allow for the presentations of operas were unfinished and only completed due to competition from another theatre in 1805.

It was to be the first major opera house to be constructed with public funds and owned by the municipality. Although 35 of its 99 boxes were sold for private use, the terms of ownership were also unique in that they have been described as being limited to "the right to rent in perpetuity" [2] rather than outright ownership and control.

Various renovations were undertaken between 1818 and 1820 and also in 1853/54. After fire destroyed much of the stage area in 1931, the theatre was closed, and it did not re-open until 14 November 1935. By that date, the original bell-shaped auditorium had given way to a horseshoe-shaped one seating 1,034 people. [3]

Associated music history

Scene from Lorenzo Ferrero's opera Risorgimento! given in 2011 Lorenzo Ferrero - Scene from opera Risorgimento.jpg
Scene from Lorenzo Ferrero's opera Risorgimento! given in 2011

The 19th century saw the presentation of twenty operas by Gioachino Rossini, while seven of Vincenzo Bellini's ten operas were presented in the 1830s. Works by Giuseppe Verdi and, later in 1871, the Italian premiere of Wagner's Lohengrin , dominated the theatre's repertoire as the century progressed. In fact, Bologna became the location for several other Wagner opera premieres in Italy, notably with the composer present for his Rienzi and the Parsifal premiere on 1 January 1914.

Another major figure associated with the Teatro Comunale from 1894 onwards was Arturo Toscanini, who conducted Verdi's Falstaff in that year and conducted with the company until the Second World War.

Premieres at the house have included Alessandro Solbiati's Il suono giallo, based on Wassily Kandinsky's experimental play The Yellow Sound on 13 June 2015. [4]

The orchestra of the company was established on a stable foundation in 1956. Sergiu Celibidache was the first principal conductor under this new regime, from 1956 to 1973. The most recent principal conductor of the company was Michele Mariotti, from 2008 to 2018, and he also held the title of music director from 2014 to 2018.

In March 2021, Oksana Lyniv made her first guest-conducting appearance with the company, in a streamed quarantine concert without an audience. She returned for an additional guest-conducting appearance in a May 2021 concert with an audience present. In October 2021, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna announced the appointment of Lyniv as its new music director, effective January 2022, with an initial contract of 3 years. Lyniv is the first female conductor to be named music director of the company, and the first female conductor ever to be named music director of an Italian opera company. [5]

Conductors in leadership positions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teatro dell'Opera di Roma</span> Opera house in Rome, Italy

The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat Costanzi Theatre, it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements. The present house seats 1,600.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gianluigi Gelmetti</span> Italian composer and conductor (1945–2021)

Gianluigi Gelmetti OMRI, was an Italian-Monégasque conductor and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teatro Argentina</span> Opera house and theater in Rome, Italy

The Teatro Argentina is an opera house and theatre located in Largo di Torre Argentina, a square in Rome, Italy. One of the oldest theatres in Rome, it was constructed in 1731 and inaugurated on 31 January 1732 with Berenice by Domenico Sarro. It is built over part of the curia section of the Theatre of Pompey. This curia was the location of the assassination of Julius Caesar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maggio Musicale Fiorentino</span> Music festival

The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is an annual Italian arts festival in Florence, including a notable opera festival, under the auspices of the Opera di Firenze. The festival occurs between late April into June annually, typically with four operas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Oren</span> Israeli musician

Daniel Oren is an Israeli conductor.

Andrea Molino is an Italian composer and conductor. He has first attracted international attention through a video/music theatre work, Those Who Speak In A Faint Voice, a project about capital punishment, and later through the multimedia music theatre projects Credo, and Winners.

Marco Boni is an Italian conductor.

<i>La cena delle beffe</i>

La cena delle beffe is an opera in four acts composed by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Sem Benelli adapted from his 1909 play of the same name. The opera premiered on 20 December 1924 at La Scala. Milan. The story, set in Florence at the time of Lorenzo de' Medici, recounts the rivalry between Giannetto Malespini and Neri Chiaramantesi for the affections of the beautiful Ginevra and Giannetto's thirst for revenge over a cruel joke played on him by Neri and his brother Gabriello. Giannetto's revenge "joke" ultimately leads Neri to murder both Ginevra and his own brother. The opera ends with Neri's descent into madness.

Gaetano Bavagnoli (1879–1933) was an Italian conductor who was particularly known for his work within the field of opera. He was mainly active within Italy's major opera houses during the first third of the 20th century; although he did conduct at important international stages like the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and the Royal Opera House in London as well. He also worked as a voice teacher and was notably the instructor of opera singers Emanuel Kopecky, Lina Pagliughi, and Aureliano Pertile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldo Brizzi</span> Musical artist

Aldo Brizzi is an Italian composer and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stefan Anton Reck</span> German conductor

Stefan Anton Reck is a German orchestra conductor and painter. He was born on 26 April 1960 in Baden-Baden, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graz Opera</span> Opera house in Graz, Styria, Austria

The Graz Opera is an Austrian opera house and opera company based in Graz. The orchestra of the opera house also performs concerts as the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmela Remigio</span> Italian operatic soprano

Carmela Remigio is an Italian operatic soprano.

Hirofumi Yoshida is a Japanese orchestral conductor. He resides in Italy, but grew up in Funabashi, Chiba, Japan.

Dmitri Jurowski is a German conductor and the grandson of composer Vladimir Michailovich Jurowski.

Michele Mariotti, born in 1979 in Urbino, near Pesaro, is an Italian conductor, the direttore musicale since 2014 of Teatro Comunale di Bologna. A graduate in composition of Pesaro's Conservatorio Rossini, where he also studied orchestral conducting, he made his professional opera debut with Il barbiere di Siviglia in Salerno on Oct. 12, 2005. As of April 2017, his repertory included nine Rossini and eight Verdi operas, an extraordinary achievement, as well as symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner and Schubert, the Rossini Stabat mater, the Mozart Requiem and the Verdi Requiem.

Oksana Lyniv is a Ukrainian conductor.

Alessandro Solbiati is an Italian composer of classical music, who composed instrumental music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, art songs and operas. He received international commissions and awards, and many of his works are recorded. He is also an academic, teaching in Italy and France.

Woldemar Nelsson was a Russian conductor who was active in West Germany and numerous other countries from 1976 onwards.

Silvia Tro Santafé is a Spanish lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. In her early career she was best known for her interpretations of Handel and became notable for her performances of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and in recent years Verdi.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Landriani 1830, pp. 164–166
  2. ↑ Lynn 2005, p. 139
  3. ↑ Lynn 2005, p. 141
  4. ↑ ""Suono Giallo", la musica si prende la scena". Repubblica (in Italian). 14 June 2015. Archived from the original on 4 February 2018. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  5. ↑ Nicola Eißer (2021-10-12). "Erste Chefdirigentin in Italien: Oksana Lyniv bald in Bologna". BR-Klassik. Retrieved 2021-10-12.

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.