The Amintore Galli Theatre (Italian: ), formerly the New Municipal Theatre () and the Victor Emmanuel II Theatre (), is an opera house and theatre in Rimini, in the region of Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
Inaugurated on 11 July 1857, the theatre was designed by Luigi Poletti, and is considered one of his architectural masterpieces, marking the transition from the purist neoclassical school of his training. Notably, the theatre hosted the world premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Aroldo on 16 August 1857. It was renovated after being damaged by the 1916 Rimini earthquakes, and flourished in Fascist Italy following its reopening in 1923. During the Second World War, the theatre was severely damaged by Allied bombardment. In 1947, the semi-destroyed theatre was renamed after Amintore Galli, a Valmarecchian music journalist and composer. Following a complete restoration in the 2010s, the Galli Theatre reopened on 28 October 2018.
The theatre is managed directly by Rimini's municipal government, and hosts musical events and cultural festivals, such as the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana. The theatre's atrium is also used for weddings. The theatre can accommodate 800 spectators in its three tiers of boxes and gallery.
History
Background Since the 17th century, there had been calls to construct a public theatre in Rimini. In 1681, a permanent theatre was constructed in the , with four tiers of twenty-one wooden boxes. It was closed in 1839. Another theatre, the Teatro Arcadico, is known to have existed in Rimini in the mid-18th century. In 1816, the small Teatro Buonarroti was opened; it was closed in 1843 by order of Rimini's municipal government for its precarious structure, and replaced by a temporary wooden stage in Rimini's municipal hall.
The municipal government considered building a new theatre on Piazza del Corso (present-day Piazza Malatesta) or Piazza del Fonte (present-day Piazza Cavour), on a site used for public ovens since the end of the 16th century. While the papal aristoccracy and conservative professions supported the Corso, the nobility and bourgeoisie linked with Napoleonic Italy preferred the Fonte. The latter camp won, and the resolution relating to the construction was passed on 14 July 1840.
Construction
On 9 December 1840 or 15 May 1841, the Modenese architect Luigi Poletti was chosen to design Rimini's New Municipal Theatre (). At the time, Poletti was at the peak of his professional career, and considered one of the greatest architects of the Papal States. He deposited his drawings on 29 January 1842, which were passed to the contracted builder, Pietro Bellini, on 17 March 1843. The construction was financed by Rimini's municipal government and a company of shareholders, many of whom were aristocrats linked with Napoleonic Italy.
The first stone was laid on 8 August 1843. The theatre was constructed and furnished between 1843 and 1857. The project was significantly more expensive than expected, leading the municipal government to incur significant debt and pause works between 1846, when the rough building was completed, and 1854. Because many of the labourers working on the project were poor, associated work on Piazza del Corso, scheduled to start on 15 January 1847, was delayed by three days as the municipality fed the labourers bread. Over 800 labourers had come from the surrounding countryside.
Once completed, with 1,000 seats, the theatre was one of Italy's largest theatres at the time.
Inauguration
On 11 July 1857, the theatre hall was inaugurated with a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore, directed by Angelo Mariani, orchestral director of Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice. The inauguration featured the unveiling of Francesco Coghetti's stage curtain, which had been delivered just five days earlier.
A second inauguration took place with the world premiere of Verdi's Aroldo on 16 August 1857. Verdi had chosen to stage the premiere in Bologna, but was convinced by Giovanni Ricordi, his publisher and friend, to move it to Rimini. Verdi distrusted the New Municipal Theatre's impresarios, brothers Ercole and Luciano Marzi, after they had modified Simon Boccanegra's production in a theatre in Reggio Emilia without his consent. Aroldo's premiere was scheduled for 11 August, but postponed by a week as tenor was called to Florence to visit his ill wife before her death on 13 August. At Verdi's insistence, the inaugural cast included soprano Marcellina Lotti Della Santa, Pancani as tenor, and baritone . The performance included 38 choristers, La Fenice's corps de ballet, led by Giovannina Pitteri and , at least 60 extras, and 18 band members.
The opera was an enormous success, and Verdi was called onto the stage twenty-seven times. The inaugural season consisted of twenty-two shows and some repeats, budgeted at 8,800 scudi, of which 5,000 were paid by Rimini's municipal government, and 3,800 by the box owners. It was a major event in the city, which attracted many foreign visitors, with Verdi's portrait hanging in shop windows and on walls. The Marzi brothers supplemented the season with other entertainment, including football games, horse races, and three tombola games with a prize of 500 scudi.
Victor Emmanuel II Theatre
In October 1859, following Rimini's annexation into the Kingdom of Italy, Rimini's municipal government renamed the theatre to Victor Emmanuel II Theatre (), in honour of Victor Emmanuel II. It flourished with dramatic operas, such as Lohengrin, as well as verismo operas, such as Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci.
In 1898, a smaller theatre was built in the ballroom of the upper floor by raising two orders of galleries and placing between the levels of the stairs.
The 1916 Rimini earthquakes damaged and closed the theatre; the first earthquake on 17 May caused large cracks and several loose columns. The earthquakes also destroyed Poletti's original studies for the project, though six photographs by Luigi Perilli from circa 1900 and five watercolour drawings remain extant. As part of the subsequent restorations, the theatre was equipped with an electrical system, its chandelier was replaced, and the stage's length was reduced to accommodate an orchestra pit.
The theatre reopened in 1923 with a performance of Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini. Between 1928 and 1931, architect Gaspare Rastelli completed the first-floor Ridotto, later renamed the Sala Ressi, and an upper-floor gallery. Rastelli did not conform to Poletti's design for these parts.
The theatre flourished in the interwar years under the direction of impresario Ciro Ragazzini. Conductor Antonio Guarnieri performed at the theatre, and visiting opera singers included Alessandro Bonci, Giuseppe Borgatti, Gina Cigna, Mafalda Favero, Carlo Galeffi, Beniamino Gigli, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Carmen Melis, Francesco Merli, Ezio Pinza, Rosa Raisa, Ebe Stignani, Lina Pagliughi, Aureliano Pertile, and Mario Del Monaco. Pietro Mascagni directed Il piccolo Marat at the theatre in 1926. The theatre remained in use during the Second World War; its final performance was Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly on 21 March 1943.
Wartime destruction and renaming On the morning of 28 December 1943, the theatre was hit by Allied aerial bombardment. 105 B-17 and 21 B-24 bomber planes, supported by P-38 fighter planes, had been ordered to hit Rimini railway station. Its rear apse and roof collapsed, and 90% of the auditorium and stage were destroyed. The gallery's balcony was also damaged.
On 2 January 1944, the theatre was classified as "semi-destroyed" by the prefectural authorities. After the liberation of Rimini, the theatre was occupied by the military, and its furnishings and furniture were looted by the people of Rimini. The boxes and part of the side-walls were destroyed, as well as the stage tower.
On 6 May 1947, following the deposition of the Italian monarchy, a resolution of Rimini's municipal government unanimously renamed the theatre after Amintore Galli. Galli was a music journalist, composer, and musicologist, whose birth place is disputed between , now a of Novafeltria, or Talamello, in the valley of the Marecchia. As artistic director of several publications for Edoardo Sonzogno's musical publishing house, the , Galli had published many popular operatic works available at affordable prices, and was notably a judge in Sonzogno's 1888 competition that was won by Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. Galli is credited to have set the popular Filippo Turati's Workers' Hymn to music in 1886; it was a popular socialist anthem that was banned under Fascist Italy, making Galli's name particularly suitable to replace a former monarch. In 1904, Galli retired to Rimini, where he died in 1919. Galli's aria Cesare al Rubicone had been formed in the theatre in 1864 or 1865, and his opera Davide was staged for the theatre's fiftieth anniversary celebrations on 6 January 1907. In September 1952, Davide was revived in Rimini in Galli's honour.
Post-war proposals and renovations
Following the Second World War, the newly-renamed theatre stood as an empty shell in one of Rimini's principal squares: though it appeared functional from the exterior, without any restoration, it was empty inside. For many residents of the city, governed by successive left-wing administrations, the historic theatre represented archaic aristocratic and bourgeois values, and therefore was to be reconstructed to a modernist design, if at all. A roof was installed above the theatre, intended to be temporary but lasting for half a decade. The area once occupied by seats was used for trade conventions until the inauguration of Rimini Fiera in 1968, after which it was used as a gym. Theatrical performances in Rimini moved to the Teatro Novelli in Marina Centro.
In 1955, the Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini announced an unsuccessful national competition to reconstruct the theatre, as a cinema-style hall with 1,200 seats. In 1959, the damaged building, covered by an asbestos roof, was used as an exhibition hall. In the early 1960s, a master plan for the city included the theatre inside a shopping centre.
In 1975, the first restoration restored the decorations and paintings of the theatre's frontal part. The renovation renewed the floors of the atrium and side-rooms, and the ceiling of the Sala Ressi, which was consolidated with iron beams. The theatre's exterior was waterproofed. Following the restoration, the atrium was used for meetings of Rimini's municipal council, as well as occasional art exhibitions and comic book conferences.
In 1984 or 1985, Rimini's municipal administration announced a competition for a new theatre, which led to the commission of a modernist replacement by architect Adolfo Natalini. Until the final plans were published in 2000, the proposal led to a petition to restore Poletti's theatre, which was signed by 10,000 residents. A campaign supporting its restoration was led by retired soprano Renata Tebaldi and endorsed by art historian Federico Zeri, conductors Claudio Abbado, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Riccardo Muti, Carlo Maria Giulini and Riccardo Chailly, pianist Maurizio Pollini, performers Carla Fracci, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Franco Corelli, city planner Leonardo Benevolo, critic Cesare Garboli, and conservative organisation Italia Nostra. Architect , who restored Lugo's Teatro Rossini, offered his services to restore the theatre for free.
A partial restoration between 1997 and 2001 recovered the external façade and decorated surfaces in the atrium and the Sala Ressi. Some floors and the roof were also renovated. The restoration was made possible by a loan from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, which also collaborated with the Emilia-Romagna region to construct a plan to restore the original theatre.