Local Award Ceremony for the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo gathered 600 people
Around 600 people gathered to celebrate the outstanding conservation of the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo in Italy, winner of a 2014 European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award, in the afternoon of 8 November. The Jury of the Awards praised the “complete authentic restoration of this fine wooden theatre all’italiana built in 1808″, highlighting that “it has revitalised the surrounding area and indeed the whole town”.
The Municipality of Bergamo and the Fondazione Donizetti organised a guided visit through the sites connected to Gaetano Donizetti’s life for the delegates of Europa Nostra, who were in Bergamo for this special ceremony.
The public meeting about the history and restoration project of the Teatro Sociale took place at the Sala dei Giuristi of the Palazzo della Ragione. Giorgio Gori, Mayor of Bergamo, Nadia Ghisalberti, Councillor for Culture, Expo and Tourism, Giuseppe Napoleone, Superintendence for Architectural Heritage and Landscape of Milan, Sneška Quaedvlieg-Mihailović, Secretary General of Europa Nostra, Rossana Bettinelli, Board Member of Europa Nostra, Nicola Berlucchi, Restoration Project Manager, Paolo Fabbri, Scientific Director of the Fondazione Donizetti, and Francesco Bellotto, Artistic Director of the Bergamo Musica Festival Gaetano Donizetti, addressed the meeting. Denis de Kergorlay, Executive President of Europa Nostra, and Androulla Vassiliou, former European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, made the concluding remarks.
The commemorative plaque put up on the facade of the Teatro Sociale was unveiled by the Mayor of Bergamo in the presence of the representatives from Europa Nostra and the former Commissioner for Culture and in front of a large audience comprised of officials, heritage and culture experts and the general public.
Other events lay around the Local Award Ceremony. Before the performance of Donizetti’s Betly, which is part of the 2014 Bergamo Musica Festival programme, Gabriele Sagona and the Festival Orchestra – conducted by Giovanni Battista Rigon – performed, for the first time, the unpublished aria Donne, poiché siete sì care e sì vezzose of the composer from Borgo Canale. The autographed manuscript has recently been discovered and obtained by the Fondazione Donizetti.
