In 1911 in Paris the antiquarian Sambon put up for auction a lot of highly valuable antiques relating to music and the theatre. In America the magnate John Pierpont Morgan sought to add them to his own  collection so as to create a theatre museum at the Metropolitan Opera of New York; in Italy an enterprising  group was formed, backed by the Government and Victor Emmanuel III. The leading members of the Milanese bourgeoisie and the musical world (the duke Uberto Visconti di Modrone president of the Teatro alla Scala, Giacomo Puccini, Umberto Giordano, Arrigo  Boito,  Ettore Modigliani, the tenor Enrico Caruso, the publishers Ricordi and Sonzogno), entered the fray and  finally won. This first lot marked the birth of the La Scala Theatre Museum that first opened in 1913, one hundred three years ago.

Teatro alla Scala | © Marco Brescia and Rudy Amisano

Over time the collection, preserved in the Museum, was enriched, and its value today is inestimable. The exhibition space is a modern institution receiving every year 250 000 visitors, and also a welcoming home for the documents, testimonies, objects,  paintings  and  sculptures which, reunited, rekindle the ephemeral delights of the theatre. Safeguarded for a century, the old mementos come back to life, enchanting and intriguing us. The Museum also includes the Library, founded with its present structure with the 40,000 volumes given in 1952 by Renato Simoni, author and critic of the Corriere della Sera who wanted it to be dedicated to his mother Livia, and which is continuously enriched and updated.

Teatro alla Scala | © Marco Brescia and Rudy Amisano

The Teatro alla Scala workshops, first based in the sites of Bovisa, Pero, Abanella as well as in the Piermarini site, have been located since 20 February 2001 in the former industrial settlement of the Ansaldo steel plants in Milan. This huge 20,000-square-metre facility is divided in three pavilions dedicated to the director Luchino Visconti, the stage designer Nicola Benois and the costume designer Luigi Sapelli (aka Caramba). Most of the handmade works for the production are carried out there – set design, sculpture, thermoforming, carpentry works, mechanics workshop, set assembly, costume workshop, costume design, laundry. The premises hold more than 60,000 stage costumes, and include practice rooms for the chorus and a stage area for direction rehearsals which perfectly corresponds to the Piermarini stage. This heritage exists thanks to the daily work of more than 150 workers including joiners, blacksmiths, carpenters, set designers, scenography technicians, sculptors, dressmakers and costume designers who create the whole staging from a simple sketch. Wishing to share this world of values, La Scala has decided to open the Scala Ansaldo Workshops to the public. Visitors can now embark on a journey through the backstage of the theatre and see the birth of a show at first hand.

Teatro alla Scala | © Marco Brescia and Rudy Amisano