The Teatro Regio Ducale (Italian, "Royal Ducal Theatre") was the opera house in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

from 26 December 1717 until 25 February 1776, when it was burned down following a

carnival Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

gala. Many famous composers and their operas are associated with it, including the premieres of

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

's ''

Mitridate, re di Ponto ''Mitridate, re di Ponto'' (''Mithridates, King of Pontus''), K. 87 (74a), is an opera seria in three acts by the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto is by , after Giuseppe Parini's Italian translation of Jean Racine's play '' Mithridate ...

'', '' Ascanio in Alba'', and '' Lucio Silla''. The opera house also saw the premiere of Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini's '' Ciro in Armenia'' in 1753; one of the earliest successfully received operas by a female composer. The variant form ''Regio Ducal Teatro'' is also seen. The atmosphere in opera houses at the time was very sociable and congenial, and the Teatro Regio Ducale was no exception. The English traveller and music writer

Charles Burney Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicis ...

describes its faro tables for gambling, and gives this description:

The theatre here is very large and splendid; it has five rows of boxes on each side, one hundred in each row; and parallel to these runs a broad gallery ... as an avenue to every row of boxes: each box will contain six persons, who sit at the sides, facing each other. Across the gallery of communications is a complete room to every box, with a fireplace in it, and all conveniences for refreshments and cards. In the fourth row is a ''pharo'' table, on each side of the house, which is used during the performance of the opera.Sadie and Zaslaw, pp. 214–215.

After the destruction of the Teatro Regio Ducale, which had been a wing of the Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace), two new theatres were commissioned to be built near the site, both designed by

Giuseppe Piermarini Giuseppe Piermarini (; 18 July 1734 – 18 February 1808) was an Italian architect who trained with Luigi Vanvitelli in Naples and designed the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1776–78), which remains the work by which he is chiefly remembered. I ...

. The Nuovo Regio Ducal Teatro alla Scala (with variant forms of its name), the present-day

La Scala La Scala (, , ; officially , ) is a historic opera house in Milan, Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as (, which previously was Santa Maria della Scala, Milan, a church). The premiere performa ...

, was inaugurated on 3 August 1778. The Teatro alla Canobbiana, now called the Teatro Lirico, was inaugurated on 21 August 1779.

References

Notes Cited sources *Sadie S., and Zaslaw, N., ''Mozart: The Early Years 1756-1781'', OUP, 2006 Other sources *Colussi, P., 2002, 'Palazzo Reale dagli Spagnoli ai Savoia'
Storia di Milano
(Accessed 27 January 2009) *Fondazione Giorgio Gaber

April 19, 2007. (Accessed 27 January 2009)
John A. Rice, "Mide-Eighteenth-Century Opera Seria Evoked in a Print by Marc'Antonio dal Re"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Teatro Regio Ducal Opera in Milan Regio Ducal Music venues completed in 1717 Theatres in Milan Theatres completed in 1717 1717 establishments in Italy 18th-century architecture in Italy