Teatro Regio Ducale

Many famous composers and their operas are associated with it, including the premieres of Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto, Ascanio in Alba, and Lucio Silla.

The atmosphere in opera houses at the time was very sociable and congenial, and the Teatro Regio Ducale was no exception.

The English traveller and music writer Charles Burney describes its faro tables for gambling, and gives this description: The theatre here is very large and splendid; it has five rows of boxes on each side, one hundred in each row; and parallel to these runs a broad gallery ... as an avenue to every row of boxes: each box will contain six persons, who sit at the sides, facing each other.

Across the gallery of communications is a complete room to every box, with a fireplace in it, and all conveniences for refreshments and cards.

[3]After the destruction of the Teatro Regio Ducale, which had been a wing of the Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace), two new theatres were commissioned to be built near the site, both designed by Giuseppe Piermarini.