Pannini, Giovanni Paolo - Musical Fête - 1747

The Teatro Argentina (directly translating to "Theatre Argentina") is an

opera house An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

and

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

located in

Largo di Torre Argentina Largo di Torre Argentina is a square in Rome, Italy, with four Roman Republican temples and the remains of Pompey's Theatre. It is in the ancient Campus Martius. The name of the square comes from the ''Torre Argentina'', which takes its name fro ...

, a square in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. One of the oldest theatres in Rome, it was constructed in 1731 and inaugurated on 31 January 1732Plantamura, 10 with ''Berenice'' by Domenico Sarro. It is built over part of the curia section of the

Theatre of Pompey The Theatre of Pompey ( la, Theatrum Pompeii, it, Teatro di Pompeo) was a structure in Ancient Rome built during the latter part of the Roman Republican era by Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus). Completed in 55BC, it was the first perma ...

. This curia was the location of the assassination of Julius Caesar.

History

The theatre was commissioned by the Sforza-Cesarini family and designed by the architect Gerolamo Theodoli, with the auditorium laid out in the traditional horseshoe shape. Duke Francesco Sforza-Cesarini, who ran the Argentina Theatre from 1807 to 1815, was a "theatre fanatic" who continued until his death to run up debts. Rossini's ''

The Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based ...

'' was given its premiere here on 20 February 1816, just after Duke Francesco's death and, in the 19th century, the premieres of many notable operas took place in the theatre, including Verdi's '' I due Foscari'' on 3 November 1844 and '' La battaglia di Legnano'' on 27 January 1849, and Teresa Seneke’s ''Le Due Amiche'' in 1869. From 1919 to 1944, more musical offerings than dramatic ones were presented, although the theatre premiered works by

Luigi Pirandello Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his almost magical power ...

, Henrik Ibsen, and

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...

during this time. A series of operas was presented in the winter of 1944–45 in honor of the American and British troops. The venue was used for classical music recordings by the Santa Cecilia orchestra in the 1950s. In 1994, the theatre became the home of the Teatro Stabile company of Rome, currently directed by Mario Martone. It offers a variety of programmes, some being large-scale productions, although more plays than music or opera are presented today.

Technical information

The inside of the theatre is constructed of wood with six levels of boxes characterizing the design, and has been restored many times. It seats 696 people, including 344 in the stalls and with 40 boxes on five levels seating an additional 352.Technical information pdf on the theatre's website Plantamura notes that the theatre's acoustics were regarded as being excellent and that the architect who designed the La Fenice opera house in Venice, Gianantonio Selva, modeled his design after the Argentina.

In popular culture

In the novel '' The Count of Monte Cristo'' by Alexandre Dumas, the Teatro Argentina was the setting for an important scene during a performance of ''

Parisina ''Parisina'' is a 586-line poem written by Lord Byron. It was probably written between 1812 and 1815, and published on 13 February 1816. It is based on a story related by Edward Gibbon in his '' Miscellaneous Works'' (1796) about Niccolò III d ...

'' by Gaetano Donizetti.

References

Notes

Sources

* *Plantamura, Carol (1996), "Teatro Argentina", in ''The Opera Lover's Guide to Europe''. Citadel Press. *

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Opera houses in Rome Theatres completed in 1731 Music venues completed in 1731 1732 establishments in the Papal States Rome R. VIII Sant'Eustachio