Description
The Teatro Manzoni is Pistoia's Italian-style theater, on Corso Gramsci: a hall with tiers of boxes, opened in 1694, with more than three centuries of history and still at the heart of the city's theater life.
The hall, with about 836 seats across the stalls, boxes and gallery, has the shape Pietro Bernardini gave it in 1861-1864. The façade dates from 1926: an entrance portico, Tuscan columns on the piano nobile and, at the top, a broken triangular pediment.
The theater grew out of the Accademia dei Risvegliati, founded in 1642 to "reawaken" the city's culture, in a building of the Wool Guild where cloth was stretched to dry. In the 18th century the hall also served as a dancing school and even as a billiard room; in 1755 Antonio Galli Bibiena remodeled it.
Since 1998 the Manzoni has been home to the Centro Regionale Toscano per la Danza. Between 1909 and 1913 Antonino Palminteri conducted here almost without a break, with operas such as Aida, Otello and Madama Butterfly.
The hall, with about 836 seats across the stalls, boxes and gallery, has the shape Pietro Bernardini gave it in 1861-1864. The façade dates from 1926: an entrance portico, Tuscan columns on the piano nobile and, at the top, a broken triangular pediment.
The theater grew out of the Accademia dei Risvegliati, founded in 1642 to "reawaken" the city's culture, in a building of the Wool Guild where cloth was stretched to dry. In the 18th century the hall also served as a dancing school and even as a billiard room; in 1755 Antonio Galli Bibiena remodeled it.
Since 1998 the Manzoni has been home to the Centro Regionale Toscano per la Danza. Between 1909 and 1913 Antonino Palminteri conducted here almost without a break, with operas such as Aida, Otello and Madama Butterfly.