Teatro Amintore Galli

About

The Amintore Galli Theatre (Italian: Teatro Amintore Galli), formerly the New Municipal Theatre (Teatro Nuovo Comunale) and the Victor Emmanuel II Theatre (Teatro Vittorio Emanuele II), is an opera house and theatre in Rimini, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Inaugurated on 11 July 1857, the theatre was designed by Luigi Poletti, and is considered one of his architectural masterpieces, marking the transition from the purist neoclassical school of his training. Notably, the theatre hosted the world premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Aroldo on 16 August 1857. It was renovated after being damaged by the 1916 Rimini earthquakes, and flourished in Fascist Italy following its reopening in 1923. During the Second World War, the theatre was severely damaged by Allied bombardment. In 1947, the semi-destroyed theatre was renamed after Amintore Galli, a Valmarecchian music journalist and composer. Following a complete restoration in the 2010s, the Galli Theatre reopened on 28 October 2018. The theatre is managed directly by Rimini's municipal government, and hosts musical events and cultural festivals, such as the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana. The theatre's atrium is also used for weddings. The theatre can accommodate 800 spectators in its three tiers of boxes and gallery.

Since the 17th century, there had been calls to construct a public theatre in Rimini. In 1681, a permanent theatre was constructed in the Palazzo dell'Arengo, with four tiers of twenty-one wooden boxes. It was closed in 1839. Another theatre, the Teatro Arcadico, is known to have existed in Rimini in the mid-18th century. In 1816, the small Teatro Buonarroti was opened; it was closed in 1843 by order of Rimini's municipal government for its precarious structure, and replaced by a temporary wooden stage in Rimini's municipal hall. The municipal government considered building a new theatre on Piazza del Corso (present-day Piazza Malatesta) or Piazza del Fonte (present-day Piazza Cavour), on a site used for public ovens since the end of the 16th century. While the papal aristoccracy and conservative professions supported the Corso, the nobility and bourgeoisie linked with Napoleonic Italy preferred the Fonte. The latter camp won, and the resolution relating to the construction was passed on 14 July 1840.

On 9 December 1840 or 15 May 1841, the Modenese architect Luigi Poletti was chosen to design Rimini's New Municipal Theatre (Italian: Teatro Nuovo Comunale). At the time, Poletti was at the peak of his professional career, and considered one of the greatest architects of the Papal States. He deposited his drawings on 29 January 1842, which were passed to the contracted builder, Pietro Bellini, on 17 March 1843. The construction was financed by Rimini's municipal government and a company of shareholders, many of whom were aristocrats linked with Napoleonic Italy. The first stone was laid on 8 August 1843. The theatre was constructed and furnished between 1843 and 1857. The project was significantly more expensive than expected, leading the municipal government to incur significant debt and pause works between 1846, when the rough building was completed, and 1854. Because many of the labourers working on the project were poor, associated work on Piazza del Corso, scheduled to start on 15 January 1847, was delayed by three days as the municipality fed the labourers bread. Over 800 labourers had come from the surrounding countryside. Once completed, with 1,000 seats, the theatre was one of Italy's largest theatres at the time.

On 11 July 1857, the theatre hall was inaugurated with a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore, directed by Angelo Mariani, orchestral director of Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice. The inauguration featured the unveiling of Francesco Coghetti's stage curtain, which had been delivered just five days earlier. A second inauguration took place with the world premiere of Verdi's Aroldo on 16 August 1857. Verdi had chosen to stage the premiere in Bologna, but was convinced by Giovanni Ricordi, his publisher and friend, to move it to Rimini. Verdi distrusted the New Municipal Theatre's impresarios, brothers Ercole and Luciano Marzi, after they had modified Simon Boccanegra's production in a theatre in Reggio Emilia without his consent. Aroldo's premiere was scheduled for 11 August, but postponed by a week as tenor Emilio Pancani was called to Florence to visit his ill wife before her death on 13 August. At Verdi's insistence, the inaugural cast included soprano Marcellina Lotti Della Santa, Pancani as tenor, and baritone Gaetano Ferri. The performance included 38 choristers, La Fenice's corps de ballet, led by Giovannina Pitteri and Virgilio Calori, at least 60 extras, and 18 band members. The opera was an enormous success, and Verdi was called onto the stage twenty-seven times. The inaugural season consisted of twenty-two shows and some repeats, budgeted at 8,800 scudi, of which 5,000 were paid by Rimini's municipal government, and 3,800 by the box owners. It was a major event in the city, which attracted many foreign visitors, with Verdi's portrait hanging in shop windows and on walls. The Marzi brothers supplemented the season with other entertainment, including football games, horse races, and three tombola games with a prize of 500 scudi.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.