Teatro alla Scala

Teatro alla Scala became the main Italian Opera House in the years of Gioachino Rossini (1782-1868), from his hugely successful La pietra del paragone (1812). The importance of Teatro alla Scala increased with the works by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) and, above all, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901). In the same period, the choreographies by Salvatore Viganò (1769-1821) and Carlo Blasis (1795-1878) extended its primacy to ballet.
In the 1920s, Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), as music director of Teatro alla Scala, gave a further impetus to its productions.
In 1951, Victor De Sabata (1898-1967, music director from 1930 to 1953) moved the season opening from the traditional 26th to 7th December, the day of Sant'Ambrogio (Saint Ambrose), the Patron Saint of Milan.
Above: 19th Century print featuring Teatro alla Scala.

The original project by Giuseppe Piermarini (1779).

Above and in the following pictures: Gaetano Mercoli's engravings (1789) of the original project by Giuseppe Piermarini.
Above: façade of Teatro della Scala in Milan.

Longitudinal section.

1790 engraving.

19th Century print.

1850 engraving.

A Giorgio Sommer stereoscopy (1869).

Libretto of Gioacchino Rossini's Tancredi (1813), serious melodrama to be put on scene at Teatro alla Scala Royal Trust in the autumn of the year 1823.

Interior view, 1824.

Scenography by Giovanni Sanquirico for Giovanni Pacini's L'ultimo giorno di Pompei (1825), 1827.
(See next picture.)

Scenography for Giovanni Pacini's L'ultimo giorno di Pompei (1825), 1830.

Scenography for Giacomo Meyerbeer's L'Africaine (1864), 1867.

Errico Petrella's Giovanna di Napoli (1869), 1873.

Illustration by Osvaldo Tofani for Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem, in honour of Alessandro Manzoni (25th May 1874).

Circa 1880.

Hints on Teatro alla Scala - Milan - Edited by the Theatre Commission - 1888.

Above and below: illustrations for Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff, 1893.