Gabriele D'Annunzio's Amphitheater at Vittoriale finally completed: after 90 years, the poet's dream comes to life

“His house was a perfettissimo teatro (most perfect theater); and he was a skilful setter”: this is how Gabriele D’Annunzio (Pescara, 1863 - Gardone Riviera, 1938) describes, in his masterpiece Il Piacere (Pleasure), in two lines, the house and character of the novel’s protagonist, Andrea Sperelli. And D’Annunzio himself later tried to make a “perfect theater” also of his home in Gardone, where he lived the last years of his life. He also tried to enrich it with a real theater: it was 1930, and the project for the “Parlaggio,” that is, theAmphitheater (more properly a theater, although it has become the custom to call it “amphitheater,” even by the official publications of the Vittoriale) that was to be built at the Vittoriale, was entrusted to architect Gian Carlo Maroni (Arco, 1893 - Riva del Garda, 1952).

Construction began in 1935, but the Vate degli Italiani, due to lack of funds for the project, never managed to see his dream realized, because he died in 1938 when the theater had not yet been completed. Maroni, too, died in 1952 without seeing the work finished: the theater was inaugurated with a concert by the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra the following year, but it was not yet finished. In 1957 the trabeated system was added to close the cavea, in 1974 a partial restoration by architect Carlo Casati was carried out, and in the 1980s the dressing rooms and the space under the stage were built. Today, at last, thanks to a 500-thousand-euro grant from the Lombardy Region, the original project has been completed, with red Verona marble cladding, and Gabriele D’Annunzio’s dream, that “marble basin under the stars” in a scenic vantage point of great beauty (from here one can see Mount Baldo, Sirmione, and the Manerba Rock), which he had so longed for, can finally be said to have been fulfilled. It took ninety years, but the poet’s wishes have been fulfilled and the theater is ready to host events.

“The Vittoriale degli Italiani preserves, and even more produces, beauty, culture, work, wealth,” said Giordano Bruno Guerri, president of the Il Vittoriale degli Italiani Foundation. "This is what a museum must do, and this we do, gladly. However, there are feats that no museum can accomplish alone. For us, the impossible feat was the flooring of the Parlaggio in red Veronese marble, envisioned ninety years ago by Gabriele D’Annunzio and Gian Carlo Maroni and never realized. Regione Lombardia helped us with generous foresight, knowing that this national monument is a precious gem in its territory. It will get what it donated. Now, having overcome all adversity, we can present to the world A perfect theater, as d’Annunzio wrote in Piacere. We have brought to completion the ’Book of Living Stones,’ an unfulfilled dream of a Poet who had made the fulfillment of dreams the purpose of his life. We are proud of that."

“Now,” Guerri added, speaking to the AdnKronos news agency, “we have the theater the most beautiful in the world, which will also be the most beautiful open-air cinema in the world, immersed as it is in a unique natural setting, against the backdrop of the lake and mountains, set in a palette of changing colors. People will sit on the marble slabs of the theater for many centuries, admiring an example of admirable architecture of the twentieth century.”

The completion of the amphitheater is part of the Reconquista project, the restoration and redevelopment plan for the Vittoriale strongly desired by Guerri: by the centenary of its founding, which will fall in 2021 (the poet in fact settled in Gardone on January 27, 1921, after the Fiume enterprise), Gabriele D’Annunzio’s residence will become fully accessible to the public. “Only one piece is missing,” Guerri also anticipated to AdnKronos, “to complete our project and we will realize it within the next year. Restoration of the house of architect Gian Carlo Maroni is about to start, which will become the museum of the ’holy factory,’ that is, the place that will illustrate with drawings, photographs and multimedia films the building of the poet’s house-museum.”

Gabriele D'Annunzio's Amphitheater at Vittoriale finally completed: after 90 years, the poet's dream comes to life

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