Even before Olivetti expanded beyond Italy’s borders, the city of Ivrea and the surrounding Canavese region had produced notable figures who, despite remaining deeply rooted in the local area, went on to play leading roles in faraway places. Amongst these figures are Luigi Palma di Cesnola from Rivarolo, the first Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Giuseppe Giacosa, the playwright and librettist from the Canavese, whose works — particularly those he wrote with Luigi Illica for Giacomo Puccini (La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly), have become an indelible part of international cultural history. He was an artist who succeeded in the arduous feat of being as global as he was local. He was global because his theatre extended far beyond Italy’s borders. To give just one example beyond his Puccini period: La signora di Challant, which was first performed in Italy in 1891 by Eleonora Duse and subsequently enjoyed a triumphant debut at the Standard Theatre in New York with Sarah Bernhardt in the lead role. However, Giacosa is also local because he never left his native Canavese. Indeed, thanks to him, Colleretto became a leading cultural hub. His home, which the poet Pastonchi described as the great ark, was frequented by such notable figures as Edmondo De Amicis, Giovanni Verga, Giosuè Carducci, Arrigo Boito, Eleonora Duse and Antonio Fogazzaro.
For all these reasons, the Civic Theatre in Ivrea has borne the name of Giuseppe Giacosa since 1922. It is certainly a name to be proud of, but it is also a demanding legacy that we must strive to uphold by combining a focus on the local area with national and international artistic exploration.
However, the theatre’s history begins much earlier, in 1829, when the Municipal Council of Ivrea commissioned the architect Maurizio Storero to design the New Civic Theatre. Storero’s design followed the customary Italian style of the time: a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with tiered boxes arranged in three tiers and surmounted by a gallery. The foundations were laid. The result is a space of infinite grace, enveloping anyone who enters the auditorium.
The Civic Theatre opened on 5th July 1834, during the celebrations for the feast day of the patron saint, San Savino. The opening was marked by three opera performances: Romeo and Juliet, La gioventù di Enrico IV by Nicola Vaccai and Il Nuovo Figaro by Luigi Ricci. Since then, the theatre in Ivrea has hosted theatre, opera, dance and operetta companies, and all of the greatest Italian stage stars between the 19th and 20th centuries have performed there, including Gustavo Modena, Eleonora Duse and Ermete Novelli.
On the evening of 30th November 1922, the theatre was renamed the Giuseppe Giacosa Theatre, at the suggestion of the writer Salvator Gotta, who was born in Montalto. Giacosa himself read one of his most famous works, Come le foglie, there during the city’s two-thousandth anniversary celebrations in 1900.
Following various renovations and a period of closure in the 1930s, the theatre gradually declined. Indeed, in 1942, it was deemed unfit for use and converted into a military warehouse. Apart from a brief reopening for the 1947 Carnival, it remained closed until 1958, when Adriano Olivetti, the Mayor of Ivrea at the time, returned it to the public following a rapid restoration. The inauguration took place on 13th December with a concert by the Turin RAI Symphony Orchestra.
For a quarter of a century, the theatre enjoyed an intense period of activity of the highest calibre, alongside experimentation. Consequently, renowned artists such as Tino Buazzelli, Aroldo Tieri, Valeria Moriconi, Valentina Cortese, Dario Fo, Raf Vallone, Adriana Asti, Franco Parenti, Corrado Pani and Giorgio Albertazzi frequently visited Ivrea. In 1967, the theatre hosted a historic conference of the Italian neo-avant-garde, bringing together the most important artists involved in experimental theatre.
However, new safety regulations for public venues led to the closure of the Giacosa Theatre in 1985, and it remained closed until 1998. The 1999–2000 season marked a new phase in the theatre’s artistic and cultural life, and it remains one of the most active municipal theatres in Piedmont, with a regular programme of high-quality performances that the city enthusiastically supports.
