Teatro comunale di Cervia

Il teatro Comunitativo per la gioventù was a small theater of about 200 seats that served for theatrical performances of actors and puppets, concerts, academies, and bingo games. Becoming too cramped, a new theater was built in the eastern Bastion of Cervia, which however caught fire in February 1851, resulting in the destruction of the wooden structures, furnishings, and scenery. This theater, rendered unusable, remained closed for several years.

In 1858, after various controversies, the City Council of Cervia decided to undertake the reconstruction of the theater in the western Bastion called “dei Carabinieri.” The final project was drafted by the Perugian architect Tommaso Stamigni. Unfortunately, the events related to the Second War of Independence delayed the construction of the theater, whose works began in 1860 as attested by a plaque on the façade. It was inaugurated on Christmas Eve 1862 with the performance of the “Compagnia Drammatica Internari” titled “La famiglia del beone” by an anonymous author.

The works were directed by the master builders Zanuccoli and Zacchi, the sculptor Ulisse Bonelli who “created the architectural decorations: in the boxes the fluted columns with Ionic capitals on the sides in the foyer of the cave and in the lobby the stuccoes in plaster and scagliola.” The painter Giovanni Canepa of Lugano made the pictorial decorations of the theater, the scenery, the wings, and the curtain. Andrea Sangiorgi, a lamplighter from Faenza, “took care of all the oil and candle lighting fixtures.”

Teodoro Gardella, machinist of the Alighieri of Ravenna, built the winches and mechanisms for the movements of the scenes, the ‘lumiera,’ and the noise machines. The façade of the Cervia municipal theater, tall and narrow, raised from street level by a few steps, is not aligned with the theater structure; in fact, the entrance door opens on one side of the building. Above it is a large lunette window that gives light to the first-floor Lounge.

The theater hall is accessed from a complex of rooms that includes the entrance, the box office, and a large atrium bordered by four marble columns, from which two side stairs provide access to the boxes. The hall is horseshoe-shaped with two tiers of boxes, a total of twenty-eight, with a gallery accessed by an independent staircase. The boxes are divided by pillars with Ionic capitals while the balcony is continuous. The ceiling vault rests on the walls of the gallery “through an elegant system of pointed arches and has at the center a circular opening that was opened and closed by a wooden rosette with gilded filigree used for the chandelier movement.”

The dressing rooms for the actors are located on one side of the large stage. The pictorial decoration of the ceiling – repeatedly restored by the company Galossi of Ravenna and the master Aldo Scione during the mid-twentieth century – still preserves the imprint given by the painter Canepa: “a large circle of floral motifs inside the crown of pointed arches, divided into twelve sections, in the center of which fluttering nymphs dance. At the base, between one nymph and another, twelve medallions are painted with profiles of famous figures in letters and arts.”

The exquisite curtain, by the same artist, depicts the boat of Apollo the Musagete landing at the port of Cervia carrying the nine Muses including Thalia standing next to the god. In the background, the profile of the city and the tower is overshadowed on the left by the representation of a richly dressed female figure wearing a mural crown, flanked by maidens symbolizing Strength and Temperance; this figure represents the apotheosis of United Italy, a theme strongly alive during the period when the curtain was painted. On the left, a barge with people, certainly the adults of the town, while a salt-laden boat approaches.

The salt boat was meant to recall the particular site where the theater stands, “built within the perimeter of the salt workers’ houses, almost a small fortress of aligned buildings. From the outside nothing reveals it, it looks like a house like the others. A small discreet entrance next to the little house where the writer Grazia Deledda lived for almost 14 years. But inside a surprise: a jewel theater.” The curtain was restored in 1997, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Cervia.

Various and important restorations have been made to the theater: in 1875 after the earthquake, in 1894 when the lighting system switched from candle to oil, and in 1904 to acetylene and in 1922 to the electric system. In 1923 a tilting wooden floor was built for the stalls, forming a small mystical gulf. Before the most recent restorations, the theater could hold about 350 seats and hosted “opera performances, balls, rallies, and meetings, and was used as a cinema in the war years.”

In 1951, having become unusable, the Cervia Municipal Theater became a warehouse for distributing essential goods to the flood victims of Polesine housed in the Maritime Colonies. In 1983 the theater was declared unusable again. It was restored to its former glory after various restorations that began in 1985 and ended in 1991 by architect Giorgio Salmaso and from 1991 to 1994 by Engineer Roberto Buonafede, head of the Municipal Technical Office. The latter restoration involved the roof which was reviewed and consolidated.

Services were created by digging in the area under the stage and creating a reinforced concrete environment above which the stage was rebuilt in iron and wood. For seismic adjustments, some parts of the building were consolidated and many architectural barriers eliminated. All the plant engineering was renewed according to the law. The old finishes were replaced: for example, for the floors, Venetian terrazzo, marble, or carpet was chosen depending on the use destination.

In the gallery, a two-level iron tiered seating was created with padded seats covered in velvet, like the stalls’ armchairs. The bar, cloakroom, and box office are furnished with lacquered wood elements with embossed mirrors. For the technical part, the theater was equipped with stage equipment including a lighting bridge, dimmers, and related projectors. The ceiling of the stalls, which had collapsed in several parts, presented cracks and detachments.

The supporting beams were attached to the roof structure with steel rods with tensioners that slowly brought the vault back to its original height. An additional restoration of the pictorial parts, fallen or damaged, was carried out by painter Petrucci Enzo of Urbino, in the decorated parts on wooden or masonry support. It was not possible to reuse the old decorative curtain, which will in any case be the subject of a separate intervention, because it was made with material not compliant with fire regulations. Today, the maximum allowed capacity is 230 seats. A photographic exhibition of the restoration works, set up in the foyer, documented its complexity. The reopening took place on May 28, 1994.