MUSEO DEL TESSUTO (PRATO) - A tribute to the history of opera and art of the first twenty years of the twentieth century.
It is 'Turandot and the fantastic East by Puccini, Chini and Caramba', an exhibition at the Textile Museum of Prato scheduled from 22 May to 21 November, the result of a research work carried out after the extraordinary discovery of a nucleus of costumes and stage jewels dating back to the world premiere of Puccini's Turandot and coming from the private wardrobe of the great Prato soprano Iva Pacetti.
It all begins in the first months of 2018 when the Museum is offered to acquire a trunk that belonged to the singer and the result is then to keep, according to the studies carried out, two costumes and two stage jewels designed and made by the costume designer of the Scala Luigi Sapelli, aka Caramba, for the absolute debut of the Turandot - which took place on 25 April 1926, under the direction of Arturo Toscanini and the sets by Galileo Chini - and worn by Rosa Raisa, the first soprano in history to interpret the role of the 'Princess of frost'.
Starting from this discovery, the objective of the exhibition was then to reconstruct the events that led Puccini to choose Chini for the realization of the exhibition.
The exhibition for this was organized together with the Florentine University in whose Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology a collection of over 600 oriental relics brought back by Chini from his trip to Siam in 1913 is preserved. The exhibition then avails itself of the collaboration of the Historical Archive Memories of Milan and the Giacomo Puccini Foundation of Lucca.
The entities that have lent works include the La Scala Theater Museum and the Teatro alla Scala Historical Documentary Archive, the Modern Art Gallery of Palazzo Pitti, the Devalle tailoring shop in Turin, the Corbella Archive, the Fine Arts Society of Viareggio and private.
At the Textile Museum together with the costumes and stage jewels found in Prato and others from the same debut, 120 works from the collection of relics of the Museum of Anthropology in Florence, including fabrics, costumes and theatrical masks, porcelain, musical instruments, sculptures, weapons and artifacts for use, a section dedicated to the sets for Turandot with five final sketches.