Benvenuto Cuminetti Archive
323 films of performances from 1983 to 2001
in digitized edition

Twenty-five years ago, on September 6, 2020, Benvenuto Cuminetti, a fundamental figure in the theatrical, and more generally cultural, life of the City of Bergamo during his years as Artistic Director of the Prose Season of the Donizetti Theater, as well as creator of the Altri Percorsi review, left us. Today, the Donizetti Theater Foundation remembers his work by dedicating to him the Prose Season and Altri Percorsi 2025/2026 and with the establishment of theBenvenuto Cuminetti Archive which, over the course of three years, will lead to the digitization of the films, now preserved in analog format, of 323 performances staged at the Donizetti Theater from 1983 to 2001, totaling more than 700 hours of footage. The digitization of such impressive material, edited by Gianfranco Rota, will form a valuable documentation available for consultation at the Donizetti Theater Foundation Study Center.

Among the many materials that theBenvenuto Cuminetti Archive will make available for viewing in digital format will be titles that remain in the collective memory, such as Six Characters in Search of an Author e Murder in the Cathedral, plays that, directed by Patroni Griffi and starring Giulio Bosetti, debuted in Bergamo and whose open rehearsals allowed a behind-the-scenes look at a production. Also available will be works with the marvelous set designs of Lele Luzzati, to whom Cuminetti also dedicated an exhibition, and performances by actors of the caliber of Vittorio Gassman, Aroldo Tieri, Lina Volonghi, Paola Borboni, Valeria Valeri, Tino Carraro, Anna Proclemer, Salvo Randone, Franco Parenti, Lucia Morlacchi, Corrado Pani, Turi Ferro, Alberto Lionello, and Carmelo Bene will be on view. But also artists who were beginning their journey in the 1980s and 1990s: this is the case of companies such as Ravenna’s Teatro delle Albe or Laboratorio Teatro Settimo. For some of these shows, the footage in the Foundation’s archive is the only existing copy, which makes it even more valuable.

“We are particularly pleased to be able to announce the creation of theBenvenuto Cuminetti Archive, a fitting tribute to the man who made our theater grow to become one of the most important theatrical performance venues nationwide,” comments Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, “As part of our activities, scientific research and historical documentation play a role of absolute importance: the archive dedicated to Benvenuto Cuminetti fits right into this vein, underscoring the value of a legacy that we want to share with our audiences and with theater scholars.”

Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths, remembers the man who can be considered his elective teacher this way: “I believe that our theater owes Cuminetti in so many ways: it is as if he was the founder of the Donizetti Theater as far as prose is concerned. Not because it wasn’t being done before, but because Cuminetti set a precise cultural policy and carried it out: convinced that a civic theater must educate its audience to vision, he created a rich calendar of meetings, educational opportunities, publications, and wasn’t afraid to open programming to those who were experimenting with new languages. From him I learned that the planning of a theater season is done by seeing the shows, many, many, in order to then be able to decide what to bring to Bergamo; from him I learned the importance of relating with actors, directors, playwrights in order to know in advance projects still in the pipeline.”

“When we decided how to remember him on the 25th anniversary of his passing, I thought we should do something rooted in what he had done, but relevant for today and for the future. Thus was born the idea of creating to secure in a digital format the enormous legacy of footage from the shows he programmed. I am grateful to Dr. Massimo Boffelli who shared this project with me and made it possible,” Maria Grazia Panigada concludes.