Celeste Aida Exhibition extended until 31st January

Given the renewed success that the Celeste Aida exhibition has had, the length of the exhibition has been extended util 31st January 2007.

Celeste Aida. A historical journey of music from the past to the future.

The Ricordi National Committee conceived the idea of the Celeste Aida exhibition to kick start celebrations of the 200 year anniversary of Casa Ricordi. The exposition was organised in collaboration with La Scala theatre, the Ministry for Cultural Goods and Activities, the Councillor for Culture at the Milan Council, will be held at the La Scala Museum at the same time as the inauguration of the next season at La Scala. The season will open with the Verdi masterpiece, conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with direction by Franco Zeffirelli.

The exhibition, which opened on 15th November 2006 and will close on 31st January 2007 is the first time in the history of Ricordi, that Giuseppe Verdi’s signed music scores for Aida, which he began work on in 1870, will be put on public display.

Thanks to the modern and captivating lay out of the exhibition, and use of  information technology, visitors will be transported to the 1800s and will be able to experience the cultural ambience of the time, in which the masterpiece took shape. Visitors will be virtually transported to 1871 Cairo; the place where Aida was first finished. One can go and look around the ancient Egypt that Verdi was limited to imagining (I never went to Egypt, I preferred to “invent it”, according to his famous quote). One can leaf through the pages written by the composer, roam amongst the life size silhouettes and immerse oneself in the virtual projection and reconstruction of the exhibition or even in the performance itself.

Along the journey there is an arrangement of figurines, photos and sketches of the first show at La Scala (1872). Verdi actively participated in this show, intervening in the direction and stage design. The will of the composer to recreate an archaeological theme on stage to create the correct atmosphere of the time, set the tone for the successive productions, leaving room for liberal creativity. With the passing of time the representations of Aida absorbed the culture of the period, whilst at the same time setting the trend.

Egyptian culture filtered into the liberty and art deco periods through jewellery, headwear and statues by the prolific Attilio Comelli, who modernised ancient times in the early 1900s. In the 1920s and 30s, under the care of Caramba, who was responsible for the designing the stage at La Scala until 1936, Aida was the set in a fantastic place where the theatre definitely distinguished itself from linguistic research. Never before seen stage costumes were exhibited along with old film clips on Egypt, that attested to the definitive end of the first editions of theatrical productions and the beginning of a new chapter in modern set design and stage costumes, including the work of Zeffirelli himself.

Vittoria Crespi Morbio and Maria Pia Ferraris (Ricordi Archives) are the curators of the exhibition Celeste Aida. Stage preparation and design were undertaken by Guilia Bonaldi and Anusc Catiglioni: The video was created, directed and projected by Luca Scarzella. The images and reconstruction of historical events was selected by Giovanna Bertelli. Gabriele Doto and Ilaria Narici (BMG Publications) are responsible for the exhibition catalogue. Roberta Cavallini is responsible for the co-ordination of the exhibition.


The Exhibition Curators


Vittoria Crespi Morbio

Vittoria is an expert in the relationship between figurative arts and musical theatre and has been the curator of many important exhibitions. Amongst the many exhibitions that she has curated are: La Scala and the Orient 1778-2004 in Milan, Palazzo Reale, 24th November 2004 to 20 January 2005; Scene in Scala 1:16 – 16 artists ranging from enlightenment to avant-garde , La Scala Theatre Museum, 25 November 2005 to 22 January 2006; Mozart at La Scala the Italian works, La Scala Theatre Museum, 28th January to 30th September 2006. She has written many essays, publications and artistic monographs on the stage settings of La Scala. She is also the curator of the Stage sets archive of La Scala Theatre.

Luca Scarzella

From 1987 to 1997 he worked in collaboration with Studio Azzuro, an internationally recognised company in video art. in 1997 along with Francesco Lupi Timini and Daniele Donati he founded StalkerVideo, an independent visual arts company, where he alternates between being an experimental director for projections and the realisation of playwright videos for musical theatres. In the theatrical world he has worked mainly with the Stabili Theatres and Italian Lyrical Entities. He has also worked abroad in Europe, the USA and Japan.

Giovanna Bertelli

Worked on the iconography research for the exhibition. Born in Rome she is a photography historian and photo editor. She collaborates with photograph archives, publishing houses, periodicals and universities. She has concieved and implemented many exhibitions and has authored many books including “Marcello Mastroianni nelle fotografie di Tazio Secchiaroli” Bolis 2006.

Gea Giulia Bonaldi and Anusc Castiglioni

Graduates from the Accademia di Brera they work as stage designers for theatres. They designed the stage-set of the open villa Pallavicino at Busseto for Verdi’s Traviata. They have further been responsible for putting together many exhibitions including “Santiago Calatrava, Work in Progress” at the Triennale Milan.


Navigating the Exhibition

“you are invited to write an opera in a distant country” is how Guiseppe Verdi announced the birth of Aida to Guilio Ricordi, which premiered at the Opera Theatre in Cairo, on 24th December 1871.


Hall 1. Presents the original documents of Aida. The musical score is open at Marcia’s note leafing through the pages bringing them to life, one can both read and listen to it. The hall notebooks of the first performance, the letters signed by Verdi, the newspaper articles of the time, musical scores that have suffered the test of time, even these are available thanks to the use of IT.

Hall 2. There are the sketches and the statues signed by Girolamo Magnani, dating back to the first La Scala opera set in Egypt in Verdi’s time.

Hall 3. This hall is dedicated to the genius of Caramba, the legendary patron of the stage-sets at La Scala in the early 1900s, during which time they had to create the most modern and flighty costumes ever created for the opera. The costumes return to the public domain only now, after 80 years, they include jewellery and splendid headgear created especially for Aida; all set on the backdrop of evoking the theatrical splendour of the time.

Hall 4. Drawings and models made especially: this is how Aida was put on stage by Comelli, Casnedi, Magnani, Caramba, Gamba and other great set designers between 1872 and the 1930s. Even with IT they were able to combine interactivity and surprising divergences.


The Celeste Aida exhibition will be held at La Scala Theatre Museum from 15 November 2006 to 31 January 2007. The daily visiting times are from 9:00 to 12:30 (final entry will be at 12:00) and from 13:30 to 17:30 (final entry will be at 17:00). The La Scala Theatre Museum will be closed on the afternoon of 24th December, 25th and 26th December, the afternoon of 31st December and 1st January 2007.


The museum’s bookshop has a catalogue of the “Bicentennial Exhibition” dedicated to Celeste Aida.