Closure of the Celeste Aida Exhibition

The 31st January marked the official end of the Celeste Aida exhibition at the La Scala Theatre Museum. The exhibition was conceived and realized to celebrate the bicentennial of Casa Ricordi (2006-2008) by the Ricordi National Committee, in collaboration with La Scala Theatre, the Ministry for Cultural Goods and Activities and the Councillor for Cultural Activities in Milan.

The exposition displayed the autographed musical scores of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida for the first time. Thanks to the modern and captivating lay out of the exhibition as well as the journey through music and time, the exhibition, which used multimedia technologies was very successful. In fact it was so successful that the dates of the exhibition were extended at the famous theatre museum in Milan in order to satisfy the request of the public, even during the first month of 2007.

During the Celeste Aida quarter, there was a considerable increase in the number of visitors to the museum in comparison to the previous year during the same period.  The 21% increase during January is very interesting, since the exhibition reached out not only to adults and experts, but also to schools and students, who were curious to see an exhibition capable of combining classical music with modern information technology.

The important success recorded by Celeste Aida has attracted the attention of many Italian and foreign Regions, that have asked about the possibility of hosting the exhibition and thus having the “rich treasures” of the Verdi masterpiece that belongs to the Ricordi Archive in their areas. The first big event of the Casa Ricordi bicentennial celebrations has been a real success and soon there will be other equally important initiatives organised by the Ricordi National Committee.