The Teatro comunale Gabriele Rossetti is on piazza Verdi, in Vasto. It was created out of the old convent of Santo Spirito of the Celestine fathers, suppressed at the start of the nineteenth century, whose rooms had then become court offices and in part a prison. The work, to a design by Taddeo Salvini and under the supervision of Domenico Laccetti, was carried out between 1818 and 1819, and the theatre opened under the name of San Ferdinando. It comes after the Marrucino in Chieti as the second opera house of Abruzzo. In 1860 it took the name of the Vasto-born poet Gabriele Rossetti.
What to see
The façade is that of the rebuilding of 1841, designed by Errico Morra and Nicola Maria Pietrocola. The horseshoe-shaped auditorium was made in 1905 by Vincenzo Marchesani and Domenico Crisci, with stucco, festoons and Neoclassical paintings. In 1830 Pasquale Monacelli and Pietrocola had completed the wooden stage machinery and the curtain, painted by Nicola De Laurentiis: it shows the Vasto poet Lucius Valerius Pudens crowned with laurel on the Capitol.
On the same square rises the tower of Santo Spirito, also called the d'Amante tower: it was part of the walls ordered by Giacomo Caldora in 1439 and recalls the presence of the Celestines in Vasto.
Visiting
In the twentieth century the theatre was used as a cinema and then as a warehouse; restoration plans began in 1973, and in 1987 the flautist Severino Gazzelloni gave a concert here. Today it hosts shows, exhibitions and conferences, including the annual «Giovedì Rossettiani» series; programme and tickets should be checked with the town council.
Our editors' tip
Operas by Donizetti and Verdi were staged here, along with the comedies of the local writers Luigi Anelli and Ottavio Suriani. During the Second World War, for New Year 1943, a farewell concert was put on here for the British general Bernard Law Montgomery.
