Teatro di San Carlo

thumb|Exterior of the Teatro di San Carlo

The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is a historic opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent to the Piazza del Plebiscito. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before either Milan's La Scala or Venice's La Fenice.

The opera season runs from late November to July, with the ballet season from December to early June. The house once had a seating capacity of 3,285, but has now been reduced to 1,386 seats. Given its size, structure and antiquity, it was the model for theatres that were later built in Europe.

History of the opera house

thumb|left|Top floor of the Teatro di San Carlo

thumb|right|Royal coat of arms above proscenium

The Real Teatro di San Carlo was commissioned by the Bourbon King Charles VII of Naples (Carlo VII in Italian), who wanted to endow Naples with a new and larger theatre to replace the old, dilapidated, and too-small Teatro San Bartolomeo of 1621, which had served the city well, especially after Scarlatti had moved there in 1682 and had begun to create an important opera centre which existed well into the 18th century.

Thus, the San Carlo was inaugurated on 4 November 1737, the king's name day, with the performance of the opera Domenico Sarro's Achille in Sciro, based on the 1736 libretto by Metastasio which had been set to music that year by Antonio Caldara. As was customary, the role of Achilles was played by a woman, Vittoria Tesi, called "Moretta"; the opera also featured soprano Anna Peruzzi, called "the Parrucchierina" and tenor Angelo Amorevoli. Sarro also conducted the orchestra in two ballets as intermezzi, created by Gaetano Grossatesta, with scenes designed by Pietro Righini.

Much admired for its architecture, its gold decorations, and the sumptuous blue upholstery (blue and gold being the official colours of the Bourbons), the San Carlo was now the biggest opera house in the world. Concerning the power of the existing Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Beauvert notes that the design of the house, with its 184 boxes lacking any curtains was so that "no one could avoid the scrutiny by the sovereign" who had his private access from the Royal Palace. He soon established a reputation for innovative and dazzling productions, attracting the public and leading singers to the opera house.

February 1816 to January 1817: Destruction by fire and rebuilding

thumb|left|Teatro San Carlo, Naples after the 13 Feb 1816 fire

On 13 February 1816, a fire broke out during a dress rehearsal for a ballet performance and quickly spread to destroy a part of the building.

On the orders of King Ferdinand IV, another Bourbon monarch and son of Charles VII, who used the services of Antonio Niccolini, Barbaia was able to rebuild the opera house within ten months. It was rebuilt as a traditional horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats and

a proscenium, 33.5m wide and 30m high. The stage was 34.5m deep. Niccolini embellished in the inner of the bas-relief depicting "Time and the Hour".

thumb|250px|Teatro San Carlo in 1830

The central frescoed ceiling painting of Apollo presenting to Minerva the greatest poets of the world was painted by Antonio, Giuseppe e Giovanni Cammarano.

On 12 January 1817, the rebuilt theatre was inaugurated with Johann Simon Mayr's Il sogno di Partenope. Stendhal attended the second night of the inauguration and wrote: "There is nothing in all Europe, I won't say comparable to this theatre, but which gives the slightest idea of what it is like..., it dazzles the eyes, it enraptures the soul...".

In 1844, the opera house was re-decorated under Niccolini, his son Fausto, and Francesco Maria dei Giudice. The main result was the change in appearance of the interior to the now-traditional red and gold.

The great age of Neapolitan opera

thumb|left|100px|Leonardo Leo

thumb|left|100px|Domenico Cimarosa

thumb|left|100px|Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli

thumb|left|100px|Gioachino Rossini, 1815

thumb|100px|left|Gaetano Donizetti, 1842

At the time, Neapolitan School of opera enjoyed great success all over Europe, not only in the field of opera buffa but also in that of opera seria. The Neapolitan school of opera composers included Feo, Porpora, Leo, Traetta, Piccinni, Vinci, Anfossi, Durante, Jommelli, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Zingarelli, and Gazzaniga. Naples became the capital of European music, and even foreign composers considered the performance of their compositions at the San Carlo theatre to be the goal of their careers. These composers included Hasse (who later settled in Naples) Haydn, Johann Christian Bach and Gluck.

Similarly, the most prominent singers performed and consolidated their fame at the San Carlo. These included Lucrezia Anguiari, called "La Cocchetta", the renowned castrati Giovanni Manzuoli, Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano), Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), Gizziello (Gioacchino Conti) and Gian Battista Velluti, the last castrato. Caffarelli, Farinelli, and Gizziello were products of the local conservatories of Naples.

Composers in residence

From 1815 to 1822, Gioachino Rossini was house composer and artistic director of the royal opera houses, including the San Carlo. During this period he wrote ten operas which were Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (1815), La gazzetta, Otello, ossia il Moro di Venezia (1816), Armida (1817), Mosè in Egitto, Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818), Ermione, Bianca e Falliero, Eduardo e Cristina, La donna del lago (1819), Maometto II (1820), and Zelmira (1822).

Regular singers of the period included Manuel Garcia and his daughter Maria Malibran, Clorinda Corradi, Giuditta Pasta, Isabella Colbran, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Domenico Donzelli and the two great French rivals Adolphe Nourrit and Gilbert Duprez—the inventor of the C from the chest.

After composing Zelmira, Rossini left Naples with Colbran, who had previously been the lover of Domenico Barbaia. The couple were married shortly thereafter.

To replace Rossini, Barbaja first signed up Giovanni Pacini and then another rising star of Italian opera, Gaetano Donizetti. As artistic director of the royal opera houses, Donizetti remained in Naples from 1822 until 1838, composing sixteen operas for the theatre, among which Maria Stuarda (1834), Roberto Devereux (1837), Poliuto (1838) and the famous Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), written for soprano Tacchinardi-Persiani and tenor Duprez.

Vincenzo Bellini, Sicilian by birth, also staged his first work, Bianca e Fernando, at the San Carlo.

thumb|Exterior view of the theatre around 1850

Giuseppe Verdi was also associated with the theatre. In 1841, his Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio was performed there, and in 1845 he wrote his first opera for the theatre, Alzira; a second, Luisa Miller, followed in 1849. His third should have been Gustavo III, but the censor made such significant changes that it was never performed in that version nor under that title (until a re-created version was given in 2004). It was later performed in Rome with significant revisions to the plot and its location, while the title became Un ballo in maschera.

Among the conductors and composers appointed by the Teatro San Carlo was the famous and eccentric French harpist and composer Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, who was accompanied by his lover, the English prima donna Anna Bishop, with whom he was touring the world. He conducted several operas (1844–1845) in the San Carlo with Anna Bishop as prima donna. She sang there 327 times in 24 operas.

Decline and revival by late 19th century

The unification of Italy in 1861 led to Naples losing its status as the musical center of Italy and the home of the country's leading opera house (Milan and the Teatro alla Scala took up these positions as power and wealth moved northwards). By 1874, the fall in performance income led to the opera house's closing for a year. Its fortunes were able to recover due to the continued support in the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century by Giacomo Puccini and other composers of verismo operas, such as Pietro Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, and Cilea, who staged their works here.

In the late nineteenth century, the house created its own in-house orchestra under Giuseppe Martucci, which helped attract several respected conductors, including Arturo Toscanini, Pietro Mascagni, and composer Richard Strauss, whose influence expanded the opera house's repertoire.

One performer who did not appear in Naples from 1901 onward was Naples-born Enrico Caruso, who, after being booed by a section of the audience during a performance of L'elisir d'amore, vowed never to return.

Conductors

Principal conductors

Elio Boncompagni (1979–1982)
Salvatore Accardo (1993–1995)
Gabriele Ferro (1999–2004)
Gary Bertini (2004–2005)
Jeffrey Tate (2005–2010)
Nicola Luisotti (2012–2014)
Juraj Valčuha (2016–2022)
Dan Ettinger (2023–present)

Principal guest conductor

Maurizio Benini (2010–2011)

Honorary conductor

Zubin Mehta (2016–present)

References

Citations

Bibliography

Beauvert, Thierry (1985), Opera Houses of the World, The Vendome Press, New York, 1995.
Lynn, Karyl Charna (2005), Italian Opera Houses and Festivals, Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Spohr, Louis, (trans./ed. Henry Pleasants, 1961), The Musical Journeys of Louis Spohr, Journey to Switzerland and Italy 1815–17. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press

External links

Teatro di San Carlo's official website
Teatro di San Carlo at Google Cultural Institute