Ernani

Lyrical drama in four acts

Music by Giuseppe Verdi

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, from the drama of the same name by Victor Hugo

Production of the Teatro alla Scala, 25 February 1959

Conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni

Director Guenther Rennert

Sets and costumes Nicola Benois

  

n° 1: Sketch for the costume of Don Carlos worn by Ettore Bastianini

Technique: Indian ink, pastel and tempera on paper

Fabric insert on the upper left corner of the figurine.

Dimensions: 33.1 x 24 cm

N° 2: Sketch for the costume of Silva worn by Nicola Rossi Lemeni

Technique: Indian ink, pastel and tempera on paper

Dimensions: 35.5 x 25.1 cm

 

Mefistofele

Opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue

Music by Arrigo Boito

Libretto by Arrigo Boito

Production at the Teatro alla Scala, 4 March 1964

Conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni

Director Margherita Wallmann

Sets and costumes Nicola Benois

n° 3: Sketches for a pair of dancers

Technique: Indian ink, pastel and tempera on paper

Cardboard support

Dimensions: 31.2 x 24 cm

 

n° 4: Sketches for a pair of dancers

Technique: Indian ink, pastel and tempera on paper

Dimensions: 31 x 21 cm

 

N° 5: Sketch for the costume of Mefistofele worn by Nicolai Ghiaurov

Technique: Indian ink, pastel and tempera on paper

Dimensions: 33.2 x 24 cm (irregular edges)

"...the true style of a production stands out above all from the sets and costumes - from picturesque romanticism to pure abstract....the painter leaves a tangible value in the form of a "sketch-painting", which becomes part of immense and precious archives and sometimes even museums as a unique testimony of the past and present scenic glories of a great theatre".

Nicola Benois, 1 February 1973.

The rediscovered figurines

Five beautiful sketches return to the heritage of the Historical Artistic Archive of the Teatro alla Scala. They were designed by Nicola Benois for Ernani in the 1958/59 Season and for Mefistofele in 1963/64, for the stage costumes worn by Ettore Bastianini, Nicola Rossi Lemeni and Nicolai Ghiaurov.

Today, thanks to the collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archivistica e Bibliografica della Lombardia, they are added to the 509 sketches and 1663 sketches for the costumes made by the Russian set designer, an Italian by adoption, in the almost fifty years of his career at La Scala.

Nicola Benois

Nicola Benois, son of the famous stage designer Aleksandr, was born in May 1901 in Oranienbaum, Petersburg, where his father was stage director of the Mariinsky Theatre, the imperial opera house. He came into contact at an early age with some of the personalities of his time such as Prokofiev, Kandisky and Stravinsky. He trained under his father before attending the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg. In 1920 he worked under Oreste Allegri, chief set designer of the Petrograd State Theatres, but already in 1923 he left the USSR and in 1924 he was in Paris where he met the director Aleksandr Sanin who proposed him to Toscanini as set designer for Musorgskij's Chovanščina, an opera that was staged at La Scala in March 1926. Toscanini and his stage director Caramba appreciated his work, and he was often invited to La Scala especially to create Russian settings. He worked in Rome from 1927 to 1932 where he collaborated with the Teatro Reale dell'Opera. In 1937, he was appointed stage director at La Scala, succeeding Caramba (who died in 1936): he held the post until 1970, signing as many as 126 productions. As soon as he was appointed, in 1937, he created the new premises for the set design workshops in Via Baldinucci and revised the lighting system of the theatre. In 1939, he inaugurated La Scala's in-house tailor's shop and renovated the stage with movable bridges.

He died in Codroipo (Udine) in March 1988.