La Filodrammatica piacentina was officially established by decree of Maria Luigia in 1825, but it appears to have already been active for about fifteen years. Initially, the philharmonic actors were granted the use of the hall located in the Collegio dei Mercanti (currently the municipal headquarters), appropriately transformed into a theater. When the Municipality decided to transfer its offices to this location, the church of Santa Franca was assigned to the philharmonic actors. It was a monastic complex of sixteenth-century origin, founded by Cistercian nuns and suppressed by Napoleon in 1810. Maria Luigia ceded it to the Municipality, which initially used it for the national guard, then for firefighters, and finally for the music school. The monastery became the seat of the Conservatory, while the church, with a Latin cross plan with a single nave and barrel vault, was transformed at the beginning of the twentieth century according to the project of engineer Gazzola into an elegant theater with an Art Nouveau facade. Inside, the insertion of a large stage and a horseshoe-shaped hall with a double gallery did not substantially alter the primitive structure but rather became a second skin. The Teatro Laico (only later did it take the name “dei Filodrammatici”) was inaugurated on February 19, 1909, with Roventa’s Romanticismo. This theater remained active until the late seventies, even substituting the Teatro Municipale in the 1978-79 season, when the latter was closed for restoration. In May 1980, the last performance was held at the “Teatro della Filo,” then cracks in the vault and dilapidated systems recommended its closure, pending appropriate interventions to make the hall usable and safe. In 1926, the theater underwent a first restoration: on that occasion, the furnishings and services were modernized, and the ceiling was repainted by decorator Silvio Labò, who created on a white background a series of architectural motifs and floral panels completely different from the original early twentieth-century decoration. The restoration of the Teatro di Santa Franca began in September 1997, under the direction of architect Ilda E. Bee, assisted by engineer Ferdinando Soppelsa from Milan: the main goal was to restore the building to its original state, retracing Gazzola’s project in the smallest details. Lamps, floors, fixtures, doors, and seats of the hall were all carefully reconstructed by artisans capable of this work. A complex “all-round” intervention, which saw the repair of masonry works, the review of structures for compliance with recent safety regulations, and the total refurbishment of systems, finally the recovery of the element that most characterizes this theater: the Art Nouveau facade. The delicate interventions on the decorative parts (boxes, columns, proscenium, and painted vault) began in early October ’99 and concluded the following January. The companies Silvia Ottolini of Piacenza and Officinarte of Bologna, entrusted with the work, faced a difficult situation. In particular, the wooden structure, mainly composed of thin woods and, in the central panels of the boxes, curved, had over the years been strongly affected by the material’s natural movements and thermal shocks, as well as by replacements and alterations made over time to make the structure functional for use. Even in treating the pictorial decorations of the hall’s curtain, it was essential to proceed with extreme caution due to the characteristics of the materials used in the 1930s restorations: during cleaning, only careful dust removal was carried out, while considerable effort was spent on fixing the colors. The curtain, of significant artistic value, depicting the visions of Vittorio Alfieri – created by Bernardino Pollinari and originally from the theater set up in the hall of the Collegio dei Mercanti and only subsequently placed in the Teatro di via Santa Franca – was skillfully restored by the Laboratorio degli Angeli of Maricetta Parlatore. The theater thus restored was reopened to the public on October 25, 2000. (Lidia Bortolotti)
Information about the Teatro comunale di Santa Franca (formerly dei Filodrammatici)
Via S. Siro, 9,
29121 Piacenza (Piacenza)
Source: MIBACT
