The eight room

The eight room of the museum is the room dedicated to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lodovico Pogliaghi and Adolf Hohenstein depicted the final hours of Verdi, who passed away on 27th January 1901. Then there are the three generations of the Ricordi family who had published the composer’s work:
Giovanni, Tito and his son Giulio. It was Giovanni who founded the firm and it was he who brought the workshop to the porticoes of via Filodrammatici and the
offices to the rooms now occupied by our museum.On the same wall is the portrait of Edoardo Sonzogno. Ample space is dedicated to the long line of stars: Rosina Storchio, Claudia Muzio, Francesco Tamagno, Enrico Caruso, Aureliano Pertile, Tancredi Pasero, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Mario Del Monaco, Franco Corelli and Leyla Gencer. Then there is a tribute to Rudolf Nureyev and one to Giorgio Strehler. The large
showcase in the centre of the room contains numerous mementos and batons belonging to conductors, as well as the anastatic copy of the score of Verdi’s Requiem – the original is preserved in our vaults.Giacomo Puccini is portrayed here in a work by Arturo Rietti, dated 1906. Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, was unfinished but was staged at La Scala on 25th April 1926. One of the authors of the libretto was the same Renato Simoni who donated his library to the museum and which can be visited on the floor above. Rietti also painted Arturo Toscanini. The great conductor came to La Scala in 1887 as a cellist. Four years later, he returned as the conductor of four magnificent concerts. In 1898 is was called upon to open the season with Wagner’s Mastersingers of Nuremburg. The public grew to adore him. He preached and practised total fidelity to the authors. He created a new way of listening to and performing opera, refusing to yield to the whims of the singers, and giving substantial importance to set design. He left Italy and went into voluntary exile in 1929 in protest against the Fascist regime. La Scala was rebuilt after the war and in 1946, greeted by public acclaim, he returned to the theatre.