THE SAN CARLO THEATRE AND ITS MUSEUM
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties”.
Erich Fromm
The San Carlo Theatre was, and still is, the pushing heart of Naples. A city that has always been looking ahead, in the middle of cultural changes, absorbing – like a sponge – all the new trends, a big cradle of experimentations, interconnections and syntheses. Naples – a city destined to leave arts free from rigid schemes. The Museum aims at offering a privileged view of the story of the theatre through interesting visual records – paintings, period printed matters, pictures, musical instruments – and audio materials, as well as a rich musical archive. Besides, the most recent years are witnessed by several videos.
The San Carlo steered the taste and history of the opera as well as customs and social trends.
All the major artists performed, sooner or later in their careers, on this stage that many world renowned composers deeply loved, such as: Donizetti, Verdi, Bellini, Rossini.
A cradle for legendary artists but also secular temple for important political and cultural events, the San Carlo has seen performing on its stage undisputable protagonists of the scenes, from Callas to Bergman, from Gigli to Martucci, Visconti and Herzog, from the Neapolitan songs performed by tenors and sopranos to fashion designers and couturiers that walked along the path opened by Coco Chanel and brought to us the precious handiwork by Roberto Capucci and Emanuel Ungaro.
“
MEMUS” (
MEmory
MUSeum), this is the name of the Museum, is a place where life recalls memories and, at the same time, softly moves towards experimentations of new languages, research and training, heritage and innovation, preservation and re-elaboration, novelty and tradition. Music? But also symbols, marks, customs, scenic illusions, the magic of a complex and versatile art, displayed in an ideal place for exhibitions but also a privileged place for multidisciplinary meetings, thematic events, movie projections, live performances.
A “creactive” Museum that helps us retrace the steps of the history of the San Carlo Theatre, a secular temple among arts, glamour and customs, with its “popular” soul and the devotion to youngsters, pieces of a global view of the “common good” that will contribute to give the Theatre back to its city.
LAURA VALENTE, GIULIA MINOLI, NICOLA RUBERTELLI, GIUSI GIUSTINO"
“
The San Carlo on File”: the Historical Archives of the San Carlo have been created with new cultural, scientific and research purposes in a music and theatre environment, all this through the lens of the music and ballet that wrote the story of the Neapolitan opera.
The project also aims at creating a permanent music space based on innovative technologies (IT devices, the Internet, machines for the set up of a permanent, virtual museum) and a complex archive that at moment contains:
- All the historical documents preserved in the theatre and in the most important cultural institutes of the city;
- The existing wide photographic repertoire;
- Sketches of costumes and scenes;
- Audio and video materials;
- Historical librettos and playbills;
- Music scores.
Our
mission:
- Raising the youngsters’ awareness about the San Carlo and its social and cultural function in the different historical periods;
- Safeguarding and enhancing the cultural heritage represented by the opera houses;
- Promoting the arts also under a productive perspective.
Objective of the project is also to file and subsequently digitalize the entire archives of the San Carlo, first step of the realization of a
multimedia archive accessible through the Internet, containing all the information about the activity of the opera house.
The digitalization is an exceptional opportunity of enhancing the Neapolitan and Italian music culture through the story of a theatre which represents a benchmark in the International scenario"
Discovering a Protagonist: The San Carlo Theatre
“This hall, restored in 300 days, is more than a coup d’état. It guarantees to the King, more than the perfect law, the popular favour”
Stendhal, Rome, Naples et Florence, 1817, Kingdom of Ferdinand I
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Misterio Azul
“Run, fly to Naples …”, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had no doubts: in his Dictionnaire de musique – one year before – the item “genius” can only remind of the foot of Vesuvius.
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Pergolesi … d’intorno
“Music is the triumph of the Neapolitans... gestures, the inflexion of the voice, the cadence of the syllables, the conversation, everything exhales music” wrote Lalande in his “Voyage d’un français en Italie”, speaking about the music by Giovan Battista Pergolesi.
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