Teatro Dal Verme: what to see and tips

Opera, theatre and popular performances at high standards of artistic quality. This was, and still is, the reputation enjoyed by Teatro Dal Verme, one of the most celebrated theatres in the world. It was built in 1871 by the Dal Verme family, and from then on up until today, the theatre has given the city and its people many remarkable seasons, with events that have gone down in history. The young Giacomo Puccini made his opera debut on its stage in 1884 with “Le Villi.” It saw the first performance of “Pagliacci” by Ruggero Leoncavallo, and gave a triumphant baptism to the Italian production of Franz Lehar’s “La vedova allegra” in 1907. Its audiences were saddened by actor Ermete Novelli’s farewell to the stage in 1915.The theatre lived many other memorable moments, with prose works by Tommaso Salvini, Marinetti’s Futurist theatre, cinema, and today’s concerts in the “I pomeriggi musicali” season.
The “I Pomeriggi Musicali” Foundation manages the theatre since 2001 and organizes the Symphonic Season of the Orchestra that has the same name and produces and hosts music festivals of various genres, theatrical and dance shows, meetings with the public, exhibitions and conferences (public and private).The Theatre was built by the aristocratic Dal Verme family in just one and a half years (a record at that time), in the place of a temporary wooden structure, the Ciniselli Circus, in order to quell the continuous protests of the local inhabitants. In this theatre in 1888, the career of conductor Arturo Toscanini began. In the 1950s, Teatro Dal Verme, which had already been converted into a cinema two decades earlier, became a music hall theatre; it then became a cinema again, and it was occasionally used for political congresses. The theatre originally presented the traditional horseshoe plan, with stalls, circle and an extensive series of boxes. It was designed to provide seating for about 3,000 people. The interiors were destroyed in the 1943 air-raids, along with the splendid cupola. The German occupants stripped the theatre of all its metal parts. The building was restored in 1946.