The San Carlo Theatre is the oldest of the Italian historical theatres. Built in 1737 under King Charles of Bourbon (41 years before La Scala and 51 years before la Fenice) and considered as “the most beautiful in the world” (Stendhal) for the splendour of its auditorium, the San Carlo became more and more important over the centuries in the history of the music thanks to the contribution given to the development of the Italian opera, from the “opera buffa” of the eighteenth century to the romantic melodrama of the nineteenth century. The San Carlo also has significantly contributed to the art of the Ballet. Even before the new theatre was opened, King Charles of Bourbon had disposed, among other things about the shows at the royal theatre, that the “intermezzo buffo” (comic interlude) should be limited (that by tradition lasted longer than the opera seria – serious opera) and should be substituted by choreographic actions representing the subject of the on stage opera. When the San Carlo was inaugurated, this habit was kept and even expanded to entire ballets: a “Neapolitan ballet school” rapidly developed and established, along with the success the theatre was enjoying in Europe.

The first famous choreographer of the theatre was Gaetano Grossatesta, who created three ballets, performed on the occasion of the opening of the theatre on 4 November 1737 during the opera Achille in Sciro by Domenico Sarro: one ballet was performed before the beginning of the opera, the second during the interval and the third after the end of the opera (respectively: Marinai e Zingari, Quattro Stagioni, I Credenzieri).  
As usual at the time, the choreographer was also the composer, and Grossatesta, who worked at the theatre for the following 30 years, wrote the music of all its ballets. This tradition will be interrupted by Salvatore Viganò: born in Naples, Viganò was very active at the San Carlo and, for long periods, also in several opera houses of the main European capitals (Paris, Vienna, London). He was one of the key figures in the history of the European ballet since he launched and developed the dramaturgic development of the ballets that, thanks to him, first became “action ballets” and then “choreo-dramas”.
Other famous choreographers and male dancers grown at the San Carlo included Carlo Le Picq, Gaetano Gioia, Antonio Guerra and Carlo Blasis, who, with his wife Annunziata Ramazzini, was invited in Moscow as a teacher at the rising Bolšoj School.

Among the female dancers worth mentioning are Amelia Brugnoli, Fanny Cerrito, who, together with Fanny Elssler, also performing at the San Carlo for many seasons, and Maria Taglioni, created the renowned trio of the Romantic French Ballet.
Among the choreographers appointed by the San Carlo is Salvatore Taglioni, Maria’s uncle, who directed the San Carlo Ballet from 1817 to 1860, and amongst the dancers Carlotta Grisi and Elisa Vaquemoulin.
Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the ballet at the San Carlo reflected the changed taste of the society and went trough the Romantic crises without finding its own identity, but rather following the national fashion, however highly respectable, of the celebratory pageants in the manner of Manzotti, between ballet Excelsior and Pietro Micca. The theatre, however, produced an international “star” such as Ettorina Mazzucchelli.
At the end of the war the San Carlo Company gradually regained its prestige and some of the most prominent artists of the time performed there: from Margot Fonteyn to Carla Fracci and Ekaterina Maximova, from Rudolf Nureyev to Vladimir Vassiliev, who were also the choreographers of their own ballets. In the last years Roland Petit has given his important contribution: Il Pipistrello (The Bat)  and Duke Ellington Ballet, among the others. After Luciano Cannito, Elisabetta Terabust, Anna Razzi and Giuseppe Carbone, the Company is currently directed by Alessandra Panzavolta.


Director
Alessandra Panzavolta