La Storia del teatro Donizetti

The Theatre, designed by Giovanni Francesco Lucchini, was inaugurated on 24th August 1791. The layout of the Italian-style hall (with three tiers of boxes and a loggia) in the form of an elongated ellipse guaranteed perfect visibility and excellent acoustics. The opera performed was the Didone abbandonata, conducted by C.B. Rovelli, the founder of a family of musicians from Bergamo. The Teatro Riccardi (as it is now called) had a plastered façade preceded by a small portico, vastly different from the monumental façade of today. In the following years, the Theatre operated regularly in the permitted periods (spring and summer, as well as for the Fair), but in 1797 a serious disaster occurred: the Theatre was destroyed by fire. The flames devoured all the wooden parts on the night of 11th January, the day before the start of the Opera Season. The incident has a political aspect, as it seems that the accident was not accidental but caused by people with an interest in creating disorder. << Previous << Next >> >>

The Donizetti Theatre in Bergamo has a complex history. The Donizetti Theatre in Bergamo has a complex history. It was founded in the 18th century, initially taking the name of its builder, Bortolo Riccardi, a silk producer and merchant. In the heart of Lower Bergamo, the ancient Sant’Alessandro Local Fair was held, a large annual market whose centre of gravity was today’s Piazza Dante, where there was a vast brickwork quadrilateral with small shops arranged in rows. The complex was a reference point for business trading, a meeting place, and a place of entertainment. It was on the site where one of these temporary theatres was usually erected that Bortolo Riccardi a member of a lively and enterprising Bergamasque family of merchants, planned to build a permanent theatre in masonry with a wooden roof, even though to do so he had to circumvent the city regulations and those of the Maggiore Hospital, the institution that owned the land on which the Fair was located, which imposed the characteristics of temporariness. With decision and unscrupulousness, Riccardi laid the stone foundations and began to erect the brick pillars. To continue the construction of the theatre, it was necessary to sell the boxes; the purchasers of the time, as in large cities, were members of the great noble families, sometimes of the upper middle class. Riccardi did not wait for the completion of the structure to use the theatre, which for the time being had no name (it was called Teatro Nuovo al Prato di Fiera or Teatro Nuovo or Teatro di Fiera): it was built piece by piece amidst controversy and financial straits but was used for performances well before the official inauguration. << Previous << Next >> >>