Gioachino Rossini at La Scala – a new exhibition, 150 years after the composer’s death

Gioachino Rossini died in France on 13 November 1868. For the 150^th Anniversary of the composer's death director and designer Pier Luigi Pizzi will curate an exhibition to commemorate the event.

La Scala's musical director Riccardo Chailly brought The Thieving Magpie to the theatre last season, as well as the Mass for Rossini, dedicated to him by the leading Italian composers of the mid-19^th century.

This year will see performances of the Petite Messe Solennelle with the theatre's chorus in Milan, Lodi and Varese on 9, 10 and 13 March.

The exhibition, entitled Gioachino Rossini at La Scala, will open to the public on 17 April and run until 30 September.

More than 100 works will be incorporated throughout the museum, which itself was restored to Pizzi's designs during the theatre's renovation at the beginning of the millennium. The manuscript of the opera Tancredi is one of several pieces that will be added to paintings and documents already in the theatre's collection.

Reconstructions of some of the set models together with designs and original costumes from some of the most celebrated productions of Rossini's operas will feature work by Sanquirico, Benois, Ponnelle e Pizzi himself.

PONNELLE ITALIANA IN ALGERI Eunuch

PONNELLE ITALIANA IN ALGERI Taddeo

ITALIANA IN ALGERI, PONNELLE

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.