Teatro comunale dell'Aquila, Municipal theatre in L'Aquila, Italy
The Teatro comunale dell'Aquila is a theatre in the city with an interior arranged across three tiers and a gallery. The main hall accommodates around 600 spectators and displays a neoclassical facade with columns and a triangular pediment on its exterior.
Construction began in 1857 after the land was expropriated in 1854, on a design by Luigi Catalani with engineer Achille Marchi. Wars of the Risorgimento and Catalani's death in 1867 slowed the work, which was completed in 1872 and inaugurated on 14 May 1873 with Verdi's Un ballo in maschera. Since 1963 it has housed the Teatro Stabile d'Abruzzo.
Since 1963 the theatre has housed the Teatro Stabile d'Abruzzo, the region's main theatre company. Its Ridotto hall, added in 1970 with its own entrance on the piazza and 220 seats, is home to the Istituzione Sinfonica Abruzzese. In 2007 the building was named after the singer Nazzareno De Angelis.
The theatre faces Piazza del Teatro, where the bronze monument to Teofilo Patini stood until it was melted down in 1940. The Ridotto, a 220-seat secondary hall with its own entrance on the square, reopened in December 2009 after the earthquake. The main hall remains closed pending reconstruction, with reopening scheduled for 17 November 2026.
The theatre still keeps its original stage curtain, about 100 m², painted in the first half of the 19th century by Franz Hill for the Sala Olimpica, the hall it replaced.
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