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In 1816 a fire completely destroyed
the Theatre: «this event was a tragic one for
the whole city and was reported with great emotion
by all European papers. However, just ten months later,
at the end of that same year, those same papers gave
the admired news of its rebuilding»  .
King Ferdinand (now I) himself ordered its immediate
reconstruction just six days after the fire
and tasked architect Antonio Niccolini with
this work. Niccolini gave a clear neoclassic
structure to the new theatre, improved its acoustics
and enlarged its stage, that still measures
33.10 m x 34.40 m.
On the evening of its second inauguration, on
12 January 1817, Stendhal was there. Here is
his comment: «Nothing all across Europe
can stand a comparison with this theatre, nothing
can give the faintest idea of what this theatre
is. My eyes are dazzled, my soul is ravished...»
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Interior of the San Carlo’s
Theatre |
But the greatest fame of the Theatre
had still to come: in the first half of the nineteenth
century, when Domenico Barbaja became theatre manager
, besides the masters of the Neapolitan school (composers
such as Zingarelli, Pacini, Mercadante) who where
able to keep the pace with the rest of Europe, he
hired Gioacchino Rossini, one of the greatest geniuses
of all times, as composer and artistic director of
the Royal Theatres.
The royal box |
Rossini remained there for eight years, from
1815 to 1822, and he wrote there “Elisabeth,
Queen of England”, “ Armida”,
“Moses in Egypt”, “Ricciardo
and Zoraide”, “Hermione”,
“The Dame of the Lake”, “Muhammad
II”, “Zelmire”.
Of course, with him as director, the San Carlo’s
became also the meeting place of the best “season
singers”, among which we mention Ms. Colbran
(who left with Rossini), G.B. Rubini, Domenico
Donzelli and the two great French rivals Adolphe
Nourrit and Gilbert Duprez, the inventor of
the “High C from the chest”. |
Once Rossini left, Barbaja did another
masterstroke: he hired the rising star of melodrama,
Gaetano Doninzetti, who remained there from 1822 to
1838, and composed 16 operas for this theatre, among
which “Maria Stuarda”, “Roberto
Derereux”, “Poliuto” and the world
famous “Lucia of Lammermoor”.
PMoreover, some years before, Barbaja
took contacts with another musician, whom he though
would have a future as world famous musician. This
time too, his predictions were correct, since this
person was Vincenzo Bellini. But Bellini chose to
go to La Scala’s.
Of course, Giuseppe Verdi too had to work there:
in 1841 he staged his first work at the San
Carlo’s, “Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio”,
and after that he staged “Alzira”,
“Luisa Miller”, “Gustavo III”
(A fancy dress ball): Verdi remained the undisputed
master of the San Carlo’s in the second
half of the eighteenth century. |
The royal box |
To conclude, it is a superfluous
remark to remind that after the fall of the Kingdom
the San Carlo’s, too, fell victim of a certain
gradual decline, at least in comparison to the other
European theatres. But the glory of this umpteenth
Bourbon initiative still shines in the history of
music and in that of the Italian and Neapolitan civilization.
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