The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma is the Roman theater dedicated to opera and ballet; it is also known as Teatro Costanzi, from the name of its creator, Domenico Costanzi.
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma History
Even before the capital of Italy was transferred to Rome, Monsignor Francesco Saverio de Mérode, who owned the San Vitale valley, clearly saw that urbanizing the route from the railway station (then under construction) to via del Corso would be a real deal. Domenico Costanzi took part in the initiative and bought land, on which he had the Hotel Quirinale built first along the new Via Nazionale in 1874, then on the neighboring land the Opera Theater, which was still missing in the new capital. The hotel communicated with the theater through an underground passage, which guaranteed maximum privacy for the artists (who also appreciated the accommodation very much for this). The artists crossed it to reach the stage where they performed.
The architect Achille Sfondrini in two years built the theater, in the neo-Renaissance style of fashion at the time. The theater was not large (1,100 seats), but had excellent acoustics and a beautiful dome painted by Annibale Brugnoli. The work was inaugurated in the presence of King Umberto I of Savoy and Queen Margherita of Savoy on November 27, 1880, with Rossini's Semiramide. The enterprise, however, was not particularly profitable: Costanzi had to commit his own assets and remain an impresario until his death when his son Enrico succeeded him.
In 1888 Medgé di Spiro Samara premiered with Emma Calvé, in 1890 by Mala Pasqua by Stanislao Gastaldon, the success of Cavalleria rusticana with Gemma Bellincioni and Roberto Stagno and Rudello by Vincenzo Ferroni, in 1891 of the success of L'amico Mascagni's Fritz directed by Rodolfo Ferrari with Fernando De Lucia and Paul Lhérie. In 1896 of Mark's sister by Giacomo Setaccioli. In November 1893 M ° Antonino Palminteri directs the works: Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Messalina by Luigi Danesi.
In 1926 the Municipality of Rome bought the theater and took over its management. The completion, expansion and renovation works were entrusted to the architect Marcello Piacentini, who with the closure of the theater on November 15, 1926 completely rebuilt the external elevations and increased by one the three orders of original boxes.
Eliminated the royal epithet with the passage to the Republic, in 1956 the Municipality of Rome entrusted Piacentini himself with the task of taking care of a new expansion and restoration intervention. The works, which included, among other things, the creation of a grand staircase and a foyer of the boxes, of office premises, the installation of new furnishings and the remaking of the facade in a twentieth-century style, were completed in 1960 The Rome Opera House has a current capacity of around 1600 seats.
During more than a century of life, the Opera House has seen its prestige increase even more internationally. In the numerous seasons, world-renowned interpreters have followed, from Caruso to Gigli, Šaljapin, Pertile, Lauri-Volpi; from Muzio to Caniglia, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Montserrat Caballé, Marilyn Horne, Rajna Kabaivanska; from Del Monaco to Corelli, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Alfredo Kraus to Raimondi, Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti.
And illustrious directors such as Erich Kleiber, Klemperer, Toscanini, De Sabata, Marinuzzi, Gui, Serafin, Von Karajan, Gavazzeni, Solti, Abbado, Prêtre, Mehta, Maazel, Rostropovich, Patanè, Sinopoli, Sawallisch, Sanzogno, Gelmetti and since 2008 the Maestro Riccardo Muti.