Written by Ben Goldstein, University of Rochester | ISI Florence Fall 2024
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Teatro Della Pergola with my class. I, along with my seven classmates and Professor Emanuela Agostini, had the opportunity to receive a private one-hour tour with an expert on the opera house, which was an incredible experience. The Teatro Della Pergola is a historic opera house located in Florence, which was built in the mid seventeenth century. It is considered to be the oldest opera house in Italy, and a cultural landmark of Florence. It is still in use today, and hosts over two hundred events a year.
Upon entering the foyer of the theater, we were greeted by our tour guide, Claudia Filippeschi. In the foyer, we were shown many of the decorations, paintings, and crests that were on the walls. She explained which materials were used for the floor, the chandelier, and the column. As someone who has visited many of Broadway’s theaters in New York City, I knew just by the foyer alone that this was the most beautiful theater I would ever visit.
Afterwards, she took us to the floor seats of the actual theater, called platea in Italian, and I was immediately overwhelmed by the grandeur of the room I was now in, with intricate paintings on the ceilings and reliefs along the wall. After giving us some time to take this all in, she gave us more information about what Florentine aristocrats would wear to opera shows in the seventeenth century. She explained the cultural and social significance of attending the theater, as it was indicative of status and sophistication.
Then, we were brought to the box seats, where notable and powerful figures in Florence would go to watch the shows. Each of us were able to go into our box or palchetto, which for me was very exciting because despite having gone to many plays and musicals in the United States, I had never been in the box seats. Throughout this part of the tour, our guide was emphasizing the cultural significance of the opera house, as it was seen as a place for some of the most powerful Florentines to socialize and be entertained.
After this, we were brought onto the stage or the palcoscenico, where we did a fun activity in which our guide placed several of the students, including me, in different positions on the stage to recreate a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Since the theater is still in operation, the stage has undergone several renovations to make modern shows at the venue possible, thus there was a sophisticated audio and lighting system. Our guide also showed us a communication tool developed by Antonio Meucci, the inventor of the first “electric telephone” (before Alexander Graham Bell), that was present at the theater. It used a pipe system that carried sound from one entry point on stage to another part of the theater, and it was used so that the cast and crew of the shows could communicate.
Following this, we were brought to a backstage area in which we were shown some pre-industrial special effects tools, such as a wheel that recreates the sound of rain and a percussion set that mimics the sound of thunder. Personally, this was the most interesting part of the tour because it showed the clever ways in which the organizers of these opera shows, despite having no modern technology, were able to create an immersive experience for their audience. To me it was a good reminder that the arts are broadly grounded in tradition and that our current technologies in the worlds of film, music, television, and theater were all made possible by the constant innovation of the arts that those before us have been striving towards.
Upon exiting the theater, I felt a greater appreciation for the Florentine spirit of artistic innovation and for the architectural achievements that make this city so renowned.