Count Luigi Maria Torinelli, together with the newly formed Società dei Palchettisti (English: Society of Box Holders), provided the funds for a new theatre.

[2][3] At that time, in fact, the city saw a notable demographic growth and an affirmation of the bourgeoisie, increasingly turning to the world of culture, where the interest in theatrical performances was not limited only to the noble and prestigious families of Novara but involved the rest of the citizenship.

[1] Even today the grandeur of the horseshoe-shaped room is striking, surrounded by three orders of large boxes, the first gallery and the loggione, all decorated in the Renaissance style, with a series of Corinthian cast-iron columns surmounted by a sculpture depicting a swan.

[3] The inauguration of the new Coccia Theater took place on the evening of 22 December 1888, with the opera Les Huguenots by Giacomo Meyerbeer, directed by the great virtuoso conductor Arturo Toscanini.

It should also be noted of the many presences of artists such as Mafalda Favero, Gina Cigna, Lina Pagliughi, Toti Dal Monte, Rosetta Pampanini, Lina Bruna Rasa, Clara Petrella, Bianca Scacciati, Mercedes Capsir, Giuseppina Cobelli, Tito Schipa, Augusto Ferrauto, Aureliano Pertile, Carlo Galeffi, Luciano Neroni, Giulio Neri, Galliano Masini, Mario Filippeschi, Giuseppe Valdengo, Antonio Salvarezza, Mariano Stabile, Giovanni Inghilleri and Enzo Mascherini.

The 1940s saw another great debut (despite the world conflict, the theatre would continue its activity): on the podium of the "Coccia" stepped for the first time Novara's own Guido Cantelli[8][3] with La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (with Gina Cigna).

Cantelli in 1943, after the huge success, directed Madama Butterfly by Puccini, a second Traviata with Margherita Carosio, Afro Poli and Giacinto Prandelli, the Werther by Jules Massenet (with Giovanni Malipiero), and in 1945 Tosca.

In the following years, up to the end of the 70s, in the Novara seasons the big names were always protagonists, indeed Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Boris Christoff, Virginia Zeani, Anna De Cavalieri, Ebe Stignani, Giulietta Simionato, Nicola Filacuridi, Aldo Protti, Anna Moffo, Rita Orlandi Malaspina, Margherita Guglielmi, Giulio Fioravanti, Gianna Galli, Bonaldo Giaiotti and Giovanna Casolla came to perform at the Novara theater.

In 1983 the sopranos Daniela Dessì, in L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti, and Denia Mazzola Gavazzeni, in A Masked Ball by Giuseppe Verdi, made their debut at the Coccia.

The theatre, which is still owned by the "palchettisti's" society, was sold to the municipality in 1986[3] (on a proposal strongly supported by Umberto Orsini from Novara), which assumed all the rights for the adaptation and renovation.

In the following years, the Novarese stage was walked by such singers as Luciana Serra, Cecilia Gasdia, Tiziana Fabbricini, Daniela Lojarro, Enzo Dara, Alberto Gazale, Franco Vassallo (who made his debut at the Coccia with L'amico Fritz in 1994), Marco Berti, Giorgio Surian, Patrizia Ciofi, Giorgio Zancanaro, Stefania Bonfadelli, Dīmītra Theodosiou, Roberto Aronica, Veronica Simeoni, Bruno Praticò and Jessica Pratt; conductors and directors such as Nello Santi, Matteo Beltrami, Andrean Battistoni, Bruno Aprea, Franco Zeffirelli, Beppe de Tomasi, Pierluigi Pizzi, Giorgio Gallione, Alberto Fassini, Renato Bonajuto, Dario Argento, Daniele Abbado.