Teatro Giacosa

Teatro Giacosa is Ivrea's civic theatre, an 1834 hall in the traditional Italian style with a horseshoe auditorium, tiered boxes and frescoed ceiling. Named in 1922 for the Canavese-born playwright and Puccini librettist Giuseppe Giacosa, it forms part of the city's long theatrical tradition.

Why it matters

This is the theatrical heart of Ivrea and of the wider Canavese area. Built as the Nuovo Teatro Civico and inaugurated on 5 July 1834 during the feast of the city's patron saint, San Savino, it has carried nearly two centuries of Italian stage history through a small Piedmontese city. Its guest list alone — Eleonora Duse, Gustavo Modena, Ermete Novelli, and later Dario Fo and Valentina Cortese — shows the breadth of its theatrical history. The theatre is also woven into Ivrea's civic identity: it was mayor Adriano Olivetti, the industrialist and urbanist, who reopened it in 1958 after wartime decline. Its history connects theatrical performance with the civic culture of Ivrea.

What to notice

The auditorium follows the classic "all'italiana" layout, a horseshoe of three stacked tiers of boxes closed by a loggione, designed so that spectators could see one another as much as the stage. The ceiling frescoes by Giuseppe Borra depict the Muses and Jupiter on a triumphal chariot, the standard mythological program of a nineteenth-century civic theatre executed with real skill. The main curtain and several stage sets were painted by Franco Sevesi and Luigi Vacca, artists connected to the Savoy court, which ties the decoration directly to the Piedmontese capital's artistic world. Architecture, ceiling painting and stage decoration form a unified nineteenth-century theatrical interior.

Context and history

Ivrea's municipal administration commissioned the project from architect Maurizio Storero in 1829, and the theatre opened five years later with operas by Nicola Vaccai — including Giulietta e Romeo — and Luigi Ricci's Il Nuovo Figaro. On the evening of 30 November 1922 the Civic Theatre was formally dedicated to Giuseppe Giacosa (1847–1906), the playwright and librettist born in nearby Colleretto Parella, co-author with Luigi Illica of the Puccini librettos. Giacosa had read his play Come le foglie on this stage in 1900; the writer Salvator Gotta proposed the dedication.

The twentieth century treated the building roughly. Declining through the 1930s, it was declared unsafe in 1942 and used as a military warehouse, then briefly revived for Carnival 1947. In 1958 mayor Adriano Olivetti pushed through a rapid restoration and reopened it on 13 December with a concert by the RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra. Later closures for safety rules kept it dark from 1985 to 1998; the theatre restarted with the 1999–2000 season with a focus on new dramaturgy and young artists. Since 2000–2001 it has been run by the Associazione Il Contato del Canavese, within the modern cultural life of Ivrea.