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Bibliographic exhibitions

Bibliographic exhibition curated by the Conservatory Library with Livio Aragona and Fabio Sartorelli, in collaboration with the Historical Artistic Archive of La Scala Theatre

7 December 2026

Foyer of the Verdi Hall

The exhibition that our library dedicates every year to the opening opera of the La Scala season seals the Conservatoire's bond with the City of Milan. A bond rooted in history: the exhibitions for Prima Diffusa bring to light documents that tell of the relations between the Conservatoire and the Teatro alla Scala, bibliographical journeys that cross the present from the past.
So this year too, the Exhibition set up in the Sala Verdi Foyer speaks of the Milan that welcomed the opera's premiere in 1964, gathers period documents, and explores different reception habits. Not only that. As is tradition, the Exhibition accompanies the city's events for the 7th of December, but intertwines with another inauguration: that of our Academic Year, an eagerly awaited moment, full of expectations and promises for the future of our Institution.

Bibliographic exhibition by the Conservatory Library in collaboration with Livio Aragona and Fabio Sartorelli.

1-7 December 2024
Foyer of the Verdi Hall

Celebrating five years of Prima Diffusa at the Milan Conservatory!
More extensive than in previous years is the programme of events that we intend to dedicate this year to the Milanese celebrations for the opening of the La Scala season: as is tradition, an exhibition curated by our Library dedicated to the opening title, Verdi's La forza del destino; the presentation of a book written by Andrea Sicco, featuring Giulio Franzetti, long-serving concertmaster of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra; a conference dedicated to Luigi Nono, also exploring the «strong and constant poetic-musical ramifications that link him to Giuseppe Verdi»; the now traditional conference introducing the opera, on the afternoon of 7 December in the Sala Verdi, with Fabio Sartorelli, our professor of music history; and finally the live screening from the Teatro alla Scala, for the public who wish to join us, again in the Sala Verdi.
This year with «Powerful, unique and vast… I like it very much!»The Force of Destiny between the pages of the Conservatory Library We will retell the history of the opera through the materials preserved by our Library, in collaboration with the Archivio Storico Ricordi, the Museo Teatrale alla Scala, and Amisano©Teatro alla Scala. On display are items from the Library: scores, librettos, transcriptions, historical reviews, and photographic postcards. The inauguration of the Exhibition coincides with the week of the Opening Night, but a preview will be reserved for guests of the AEC Annual Congress, the Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen, bearing witness to the central role of our Institute not only in the City, but also in Europe and worldwide, within a network of collaborations with major institutions of artistic and musical training.

Exhibition curated by the Library of the Conservatorio di Musica G. Verdi of Milan, in collaboration with Livio Aragona and Fabio Sartorelli

1 | 7 December 2023
On the occasion of BEFORE WIDESPREAD 2023
Foyer of the Sala Verdi at the Milan Conservatory of Music

Also this year the Conservatory Library is taking part in the events of First Spread (after Tosca in 2019, Macbeth in 2021, Boris Godunov in 2022) with a book exhibition intended to recount the genesis and reception of the opera being staged this coming 7 December at the Teatro alla Scala – the Don Carlo by Giuseppe Verdi – through the copies held by the Library. This is an exhibition itinerary that brings together bibliographical resources of various kinds – librettos, scores, transcriptions, instrumental reworkings, reviews and analyses in musical magazines, portraits, photographs, diagrams with stage layouts – around the Don Carlo by Verdi, which bear witness to the different versions of the opera (no other Verdi title possesses such a variety of substitutions and combinations). The exhibition catalogue will be enriched with images from the Museo Teatrale alla Scala and the Archivio Storico Ricordi, two Milanese institutions with which, once again, this valuable collaboration is strengthened.

Bibliographic exhibition organised by the Library of the G. Verdi Conservatory of Music in Milan, in collaboration with Alessandra Palidda (Oxford Brookes University). Verdi of Milan, in collaboration with Alessandra Palidda (Oxford Brookes University)

17 March | 24 July 2023
Library of the Conservatorio di musica G. Verdi of Milan

The Bibliographic Exhibition The Music Collection of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. Places, Protagonists, repertoires it aims to promote the music collection of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (Milan, 1805-1814) held by the Milan Conservatory Library. Thanks to the discovery by Dr Marina Rosa of a manuscript inventory of the Napoleonic court music at the State Archive of Milan (Acts of government, Sovereign powers, box 219, Attachment no. 37), it has been possible to obtain a preliminary list of the bibliographic resources of the collection, a large part of which are now scattered across the various shelving sections of the Library.
By holding the bibliographic exhibition, the aim is to promote knowledge of the scores produced for the various musical needs of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, whilst simultaneously stimulating research and debate on the historical, social and musical context of Milan, in which an intense
Musical activity flourished in the churches, colleges, private academies, public concerts and theatres of the city. Furthermore, it is a matter of outlining the cultural framework in which the Milan Conservatory was founded.

Exhibition curated by the Library of the G. Verdi Music Conservatory in Milan, in collaboration with Fabio Sartorelli. Verdi of Milan, in collaboration with Fabio Sartorelli

As part of the project Giacomo Puccini. Student in Milan. The Milan Conservatory for Puccini Celebrations 1924-2024

22 December 2022 | 22 January 2023
Foyer of the Verdi Hall

The exhibition picks up the threads of the show And you, beltade ignota. Giacomo Puccini at the Conservatory, set up by the Library in 2019 (on the occasion of the Tosca at the La Scala premiere) which told the story of a young Puccini studying at the Royal Conservatory of Milan. The current exhibition broadens the perspective to life at the Conservatory during those years when Puccini was a student, to his friends, teachers, and colleagues, but also to older students who had already experienced the Conservatory, to the Milan of that time, and to the wonder of the great exhibitions.

The intention of the exhibition is to recount, through the documents preserved in the Library of the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan – musical manuscripts, printed editions, opera librettos, registers, historical newspapers, archival papers, etc. – not only the educational path of Giacomo Puccini, but also that of several other students who, like him, attended the Milan Conservatory in the 1880s, in particular Pietro Mascagni, Marco Enrico Bossi, and Eugenio De‘ Guarinoni, with a parenthesis dedicated to Alfredo Catalani, whom Puccini frequented assiduously as soon as he arrived in Milan and who had graduated from the Conservatory only a few years earlier.

Reflecting on the Milan Conservatory in the 1880s, around Giacomo Puccini, a mention of the teachers the young composer met during his studies could not be omitted; here it has been decided to focus not on the composition teachers – Antonio Bazzini and Amilcare Ponchielli – but to propose a selection of texts by Amintore Galli, who was his teacher of music history and aesthetics.

This is a journey that considers the enhancement of the bibliographic and artistic heritage as a tool to retrace the history of the Milan Conservatory, exploring its activities and events, encountering documents, the protagonists of the Milanese musical scene, the essays and books published on harmony, analysis, music history and aesthetics, and the repertoire studied and performed in those years.

Exhibition curated by the Library of the Conservatorio di Musica G. Verdi of Milan, in collaboration with Fabio Sartorelli

1 | 7 December 2022
On the occasion of BEFORE WIDESPREAD 2022
Foyer of the Sala Verdi at the Milan Conservatory of Music

For the third time, the Milan Conservatory of Music is taking part in the Prima Diffusa project: as in 2019 and 2021 with an exhibition and the screening of the Prima in the Sala Verdi on 7 December.
Following Puccini, a young student at the Milan Conservatory, at the centre of the 2019 exhibition, and last year's Verdi of Macbeth, this time the spotlight is on Mussorgsky and his masterpiece Boris Godunov, in light of the growing critical and public interest in Italy for this work, which is still so rarely performed. Specifically, this is an exhibition trail through the bibliographic resources held by the Conservatory Library, offering a particular perspective from which the public is invited to examine the genesis and, above all, the fortunes of both Boris and its author: books, scores, musical journals and photographs bear witness to our country's growing interest in the Russian composer from the late 1890s throughout the twentieth century.

Exhibition curated by the Library of the Conservatorio di Musica G. Verdi of Milan, in collaboration with Mariateresa Dellaborra

21 November| 21 December 2022
Library of the Conservatorio di musica G. Verdi of Milan

The exhibition dedicated to Giacomo Orefice brings to the attention of scholars, musicians, musicologists, bibliographers and historians the musician's heritage, acquired by the Library with the precise duty not only to preserve it, but precisely to make it «available to musical scholars», in accordance with the wishes of Orefice's daughter-in-law, to whom we owe the donation of the Collection to the Milan Conservatory.
Not only that. The Exhibition is embedded—specifically to meet the desire to rediscover Orefice’s work—within a three-day international conference of studies (Music in Milan in the early 20th century: around Giacomo Orefice (1865-1922), 21-23 November 2022) dedicated to the musician, his work as a composer as well as his commitment to teaching and education, with a specific focus on his proposal for the reform of musical studies, which at the time went unheeded; a conference organised by the Conservatoire in conjunction with the Italian Musicological Society, under the patronage of the Università degli Studi di Milano.

Exhibition curated by the Library of the Giuseppe Verdi Music Conservatory in Milan, in collaboration with Fabio Sartorelli

26 October | 16 November 2022
Foyer of the Sala Verdi at the Milan Conservatory of Music

Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito (Padua, 24 February 1842 – Milan, 10 June 1918) began his musical studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Music in Milan in 1853; Francesco Antonio Faccio (Verona, 8 March 1840 – Monza, 21 July 1891) enrolled instead in 1855. Both completed their schooling in 1861, Boito under the guidance of Alberto Mazzucato, and Faccio with Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti. During their years of study in Milan, the two youths became lifelong friends, sharing a genuine and lasting friendship that would continue even after the completion of their studies at the Conservatoire. In addition to the assessments in the enrolment registers of the Royal Conservatoire and the musical manuscripts of the examination tests preserved in the Library, in order to fully appreciate the achievements attained during their years of study by the two young pupils, it is necessary to consider the response of music criticism – which was truly extraordinary, given that the two composers were at that time merely students at the Conservatoire, even if at times held differing views – sparked by two works, composed jointly by Boito and Faccio for the final Academy concerts of 1860 and 1861: The Fourth of June e The Sisters of Italy.

Exhibition by the Music Conservatory Library Giuseppe Verdi of Milan
With the collaboration of the Archivio Storico Ricordi

26 November | 22 December 2021
Foyer of the Sala Verdi at the Milan Conservatory of Music

For the second time, the Milan Conservatory confirms its participation in the Prima Diffusa project: as in 2019, with an exhibition and the screening of the opening night in the Sala Verdi on 7 December.

Following Puccini, a young student at the Milan Conservatory, who was the focus of the exhibition two years ago, the spotlight is now on Verdi, “re-examined” in light of the documents kept in the Conservatory Library, and beyond. This is, specifically, an exhibition route through bibliographic resources held by the Library itself, offering a unique perspective from which the public is invited to view the genesis and reception of Verdi's Macbeth. It proposes historical sources and testimonies that allow visitors to retrace the composition of the opera, learn about the qualities of the performers of the premiere, confirm the success – including the publishing success – of the title, and bear witness to the slow yet inexorable spread of Shakespeare's tragedy in Italy in the wake of the success of Verdi's opera.

Exhibition by the Conservatory Library Giuseppe Verdi of Milan
in collaboration with the Ricordi Historical Archive

30 November | 20 December 2019
Foyer of the Sala Verdi at the Milan Conservatory of Music

The Exhibition And you, beltade ignota. Giacomo Puccini at the Conservatory Tell the story of a young Puccini as a student at the Milanese institute. At the Conservatory, Puccini graduated in Composition in 1883, first as a student of Antonio Bazzini, then of Amilcare Ponchielli. This is evidenced by some of the documents on display, preserved in the Conservatory Library.
The occasion of the Exhibition, offered by the La Scala season premiere with Tosca, it becomes precious for opening the Library's own caskets to the public: the student register, Puccini's exam papers, his teachers' appraisals, assessments, as well as letters of his dedicated precisely to various performances of Tosca... A taste of a priceless heritage, which not only scholars have the right to know.

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