Teatro Nuovo

The New Theater The Teatro Nuovo of Spoleto is in the historical center of the town. The town Municipality deliberated its construction on 13 February 1846, believing the “Teatro Antico Augusto” was “indecent and deaf”. The work lasted almost twenty years, and the townspeople tried to accelerate its completion, even by setting on fire the then “Teatro Nobile”, now Caio Mellisso. The new theater was solemnly inaugurated on 3 August 1864. It is a building characterized by a horseshoe-shaped floor plan with four orders of boxes. The Teatro Nuovo design is of the architect Ireneo Aleardi, also author of the Sphaeristerium of Macerata and the theaters of Ascoli and San Severino. Instead, Luigi Masella was commissioned for the stucco decoration work and the painting of the audience hall and the stage curtain. The Roman painter Carlo Bazzani executed the so-called Comodino—the curtain of service—while Pietro Recanatini painted the scenes of historical character and Eugenio Venier was in charge of the management of the stage machinery. The slowing down of the work was also due to some legal complaints about the curtain execution, which at the end was commissioned to Francesco Colghetti, an artist from Bergamo. In the meantime, the grandiose gilded chandelier sketch arrived from Paris and the wall clock for the scenic arch was ordered. Finally, it was the turn of the execution of the stuccowork on the façade and the medallions with the portraits of The Maestros of Music, which were commissioned to the sculptor Biagioli.