In every season (even during the First World War) the proposal of operas and the presence of prose theatre continued.
In 1917, the opera Liacle by musician and fellow-citizen Edoardo Berlendis was performed for the first time, one of the most important opera events of the 1900s at the Donizetti. As far as prose is concerned, the names of Flavio Andò, Emma and Irma Gramatica, Edoardo Ferravilla, Angelo Musco, Gualtiero Tumiati, Maria Melato, Tina Di Lorenzo, Ruggero Ruggeri and Ermete Novelli, among others, can be mentioned.
In the 1920s the Italian political climate took a downturn with the rise to power of Mussolini and Fascism, while in Bergamo the old town centre, where the age-old shacks of the Fabbrica della Fiera stood, was demolished, and replaced, by the architect Piacentini, with the complex of new buildings that still make up the town centre.
The 1930s marked important events in the life of the Theatre. In 1931, the Municipality of Bergamo appointed Bindo Missiroli, a former music critic, as its director, who organised the opera seasons. This was a moment of great importance. From then on, the theatre ceased to be managed by private interests and was taken over directly by a special Civic Commission, which in its new management gave priority to the interests of the community.
