The Filodrammatica of Piacenza was officially established by decree of Maria Luigia in 1825, but it appears it had already been active for about fifteen years. Initially, the filodrammatici were granted the use of the hall located in the Merchants’ College (currently the town hall), suitably converted into a theater. When the Municipality decided to move its offices to this location, the church of Santa Franca was assigned to the filodrammatici. This was a monastic complex of sixteenth-century origins, founded by Cistercian nuns and suppressed by Napoleon in 1810. Maria Luigia ceded it to the Municipality, which first used it for the national guard, then for the firefighters, and finally for the music school. The monastery became the seat of the Conservatory, while the church, with a Latin cross plan featuring a single nave and barrel vault, was transformed in the early twentieth century according to engineer Gazzola’s project into an elegant theater with an Art Nouveau façade. Inside, the insertion of a large stage and a hall with a horseshoe-shaped plan and double gallery did not substantially alter the original structure but rather became a second skin. The Lay Theater (only later did it take the name “dei Filodrammatici”) was inaugurated on February 19, 1909, with Roventa’s Romanticism. This theater remained active until the late 1970s, even replacing the Municipal Theater in the 1978-’79 season when the latter was closed for restoration. In May 1980, the final performance took place at the “Teatro della Filo,” after which cracks in the vault and dilapidated systems advised its closure, awaiting proper interventions to make the hall usable and safe. In 1926, the theater underwent a first recovery intervention: on that occasion, furnishings and services were modernized, and the ceiling was repainted by decorator Silvio Labò, who created on a white background a set of architectural motifs and floral panels entirely different from the original early 20th-century decoration. The restoration of the Santa Franca Theater began in September 1997, under the direction of architect Ilda E. Bee, assisted by engineer Ferdinando Soppelsa of Milan: the primary goal was to restore the building to its original state, retracing Gazzola’s project down to the smallest details. Lamps, floors, fixtures, doors, and the hall’s seats were all carefully reconstructed by artisans capable of this work. A complex, “all-around” intervention, which saw the repair of masonry work, structural review to comply with recent safety standards, total system redevelopment, and finally the recovery of the element that most characterizes this theater: the Art Nouveau façade. Delicate work on decorative parts (boxes, columns, proscenium, and painted vault) began in early October 1999 and concluded the following January. The companies Silvia Ottolini of Piacenza and Officinarte of Bologna, entrusted with the task, faced a challenging situation. In particular, the wooden structure, mainly made of thin woods and, in the central panels of the boxes, curved, had over the years suffered strongly from material movements and thermal shocks, as well as from replacements and tampering carried out time to time to make the structure functional for use. Also, in treating the painted decorations of the hall’s drapery, extreme caution was necessary due to the nature of the materials used in the 1930s restorations: cleaning was limited to careful dust removal, while considerable effort went into fixing the colors. The curtain, of significant artistic value, depicts the visions of Vittorio Alfieri – made by Bernardino Pollinari and originally from the theater set up in the hall of the Merchants’ College, only later placed in the Santa Franca Theater – and was expertly restored by the Laboratorio degli Angeli of Maricetta Parlatore. The theater, thus restored, reopened to the public on October 25, 2000. (Lidia Bortolotti)
Information about Santa Franca Municipal Theater (formerly Filodrammatici)
Via S. Siro, 9,
29121 Piacenza (Piacenza)
Source: MIBACT
