Teatro Rossini

The official inauguration took place in August-September 1759 with the work Il Mercato di Malmantile a by D. Fischietti, after the raising of only the external masonry works. Subsequently, the completed theater was inaugurated during the 1761 Fair, with Cato in Utica, musical drama on a libretto by Metastasio. The artistic life of the Lugo theater is largely linked to Rossini (who lived in Lugo from 1802 to 1804) and to his opera production from 1814 to 1840, although other great names of the time alternated on the stage, such as Mercadante, Bellini and Donizetti, who monopolized the theater seasons for about a decade, until the first Verdi operas appeared. For Lugo and for the people of Lugo, the Theater did not mean only entertainment, music and singing, but it was an important instrument for carrying out events of city life in its most significant moments in relation to the times. Until the early nineteenth century, opera performances, generally comic operas, alternated with prose shows and the theater was also used for parties. Highlights of the artistic life of the Lugo theater in the nineteenth century were the performance in 1813 by Nicolò Paganini and the "Rossinian period", already mentioned. The performance of Giuseppe Verdi's operas prevailed throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Puccini was represented starting from the end of the nineteenth century and Wagner in 1900 with the Lohengrin . In 1902 the great Arturo Toscanini conducted the Aida there, while in 1905 the Lilia by the Lombard composer and conductor Francesco Balilla Pratella made its debut.