Teatro Regio (Parma)
Teatro Regio (Parma)
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Teatro Regio (Parma)

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Teatro Regio (Parma)

Teatro Regio di Parma, originally constructed as the Nuovo Teatro Ducale (New Ducal Theatre), is an opera house and opera company in Parma, Italy.

Replacing an obsolete house, the new Ducale achieved prominence in the years after 1829, and especially so after the composer Giuseppe Verdi, who was born near Busseto, some thirty kilometres away, had achieved fame. Also well known in Parma was the conductor Arturo Toscanini, born there in 1867.

As has been noted by Lee Marshall, "while not as well known as La Scala in Milan or La Fenice in Venice, the city’s Teatro Regio....is considered by opera buffs to be one of the true homes of the great Italian tradition, and the well-informed audience is famous for giving voice to its approval or disapproval – not just from the gallery."

The 1,400-seat auditorium, with four tiers of boxes topped by a gallery, was inaugurated on 16 May 1829 when it presented the premiere of Vincenzo Bellini's Zaira, a production which was staged another seven times, although it did not prove to be popular with the Parma audiences. Initially Rossini had been invited to compose a work for the inauguration of the house, but he was too busy and so the task fell to Bellini. However, that inaugural season saw three Rossini operas staged, including Moïse et Pharaon, Semiramide, and Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Today, the company stages about four operas each season from mid January to April and, since 2003, it has presented an annual Verdi Festival each October.

There had been a Ducal Theatre in Parma since the 17th century, the principal one being the Teatro Farnese constructed in 1618, but it was used only nine times, the last one occurring in October 1732, after which it suffered from years from neglect and further damage by American bombing in World War II. It was rebuilt in 1966.

However, the "Nuovo" replaced another existing "small and narrow" Ducal Theatre dating from 1688, which had been located in the Palazzo di Riserva. The 1,200-seat theatre was becoming obsolete due to a variety of factors, including the need to appeal to an increasing middle class desire to experience opera, but also allow for "separate and well articulated private and public spaces". After a performance of Rossini's Zelmira in 1828, it was closed and then demolished.

The newly built "Nuovo Ducale" was located on the site of the former Monastery of St. Alexander and it was located next to the Ducal Palace. Construction began in 1821 during the reign of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma who, as Napoleon I's divorced second wife, preferred divorce rather than exile. She settled in Parma, ruling from 1816 to 1847, and under her patronage and financial support, secured the services of the architect Nicola Bettoli. Marie Louise oversaw the construction, assuring that the interior decoration reflected "the sobriety of neoclassicism and the colours white and light blue".

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