Description
All that remains of the former Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples is a church, the church of the Graziella, which has the altar where the stalls used to be. Until 1737 this was the city's main opera house, and it was here that opera buffa was born.
There is no stage to visit. Anyone looking for the San Bartolomeo finds a religious building where chamber music is played: what remains of the theater is its history and its location.
The story begins in 1620. The Hospital of the Incurabili built the theater next to the church of San Bartolomeo with a practical idea: to pay for the patients' care with ticket sales. In 1644 Philip IV of Spain granted the congregation special privileges over plays.
It did not quite work out that way: between speculation and debts, it ended up that the hospital was supporting the theater, not the other way around.
On this stage Naples saw its first real operas. At first they were works by Monteverdi and other composers from the North. Only in 1655 came the first by a local composer, La fedeltà trionfante by Giuseppe Alfiero. For an opera by a Neapolitan with both libretto and music, they waited until 1684.
On 6 February 1681 a fire destroyed the theater, which was rebuilt in two years. In 1696, renovated and enlarged thanks to the viceroy, the Duke of Medinaceli, it hosted the Comodo Antonino by Alessandro Scarlatti, then master of the Royal Chapel.
In the following years Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci, Johann Adolf Hasse and Pergolesi came through, whose Salustia was staged in 1732. Of Vinci, people remember the comic intermezzo Bacocco e Ermosilla, from 1722.
Then, one September evening in 1733, between two acts of Pergolesi's Il prigioniero superbo, a cunning maid stepped onto the stage who got her master to marry her. It was La serva padrona, with a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, and the comic intermezzo became the model for opera buffa.
A rival brought the story to a close. In 1737 the San Carlo opened and the San Bartolomeo lost its first place in the city. That same year Angelo Carasale converted the building into a church, with the altar where the stalls had been.
After the 1980 earthquake the church was closed. It reopened in December 2014 as the home of the Cersim chamber music center: in a way, music has come home.
Don't miss
• The church of the Graziella.
• The chamber music.
Did you know?
• La serva padrona was originally an intermezzo, a comic show performed between the acts of an opera seria.
• The poet and librettist Andrea Perrucci, a playwright, was the poet of the San Bartolomeo.
There is no stage to visit. Anyone looking for the San Bartolomeo finds a religious building where chamber music is played: what remains of the theater is its history and its location.
The story begins in 1620. The Hospital of the Incurabili built the theater next to the church of San Bartolomeo with a practical idea: to pay for the patients' care with ticket sales. In 1644 Philip IV of Spain granted the congregation special privileges over plays.
It did not quite work out that way: between speculation and debts, it ended up that the hospital was supporting the theater, not the other way around.
On this stage Naples saw its first real operas. At first they were works by Monteverdi and other composers from the North. Only in 1655 came the first by a local composer, La fedeltà trionfante by Giuseppe Alfiero. For an opera by a Neapolitan with both libretto and music, they waited until 1684.
On 6 February 1681 a fire destroyed the theater, which was rebuilt in two years. In 1696, renovated and enlarged thanks to the viceroy, the Duke of Medinaceli, it hosted the Comodo Antonino by Alessandro Scarlatti, then master of the Royal Chapel.
In the following years Leonardo Leo, Leonardo Vinci, Johann Adolf Hasse and Pergolesi came through, whose Salustia was staged in 1732. Of Vinci, people remember the comic intermezzo Bacocco e Ermosilla, from 1722.
Then, one September evening in 1733, between two acts of Pergolesi's Il prigioniero superbo, a cunning maid stepped onto the stage who got her master to marry her. It was La serva padrona, with a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, and the comic intermezzo became the model for opera buffa.
A rival brought the story to a close. In 1737 the San Carlo opened and the San Bartolomeo lost its first place in the city. That same year Angelo Carasale converted the building into a church, with the altar where the stalls had been.
After the 1980 earthquake the church was closed. It reopened in December 2014 as the home of the Cersim chamber music center: in a way, music has come home.
Don't miss
• The church of the Graziella.
• The chamber music.
Did you know?
• La serva padrona was originally an intermezzo, a comic show performed between the acts of an opera seria.
• The poet and librettist Andrea Perrucci, a playwright, was the poet of the San Bartolomeo.