On this day, The Teatro alla Scala was founded, under the auspices of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, to replace the Royal Ducal Theatre, which was destroyed by fire on 26 February 1776. Designed by the great neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini, the theatre opened with Antonio Salieri’s opera L’Europa Riconosciuta. La Scala (as it came to be known) soon became the preeminent meeting place for noble and wealthy Milanese people, but as with most theatres at that time, it was also a casino, with gamblers sitting in the foyer. Conditions could be frustrating for the opera lover, as Mary Shelley discovered in September 1840: “Unfortunately, as is well known, the theatre of La Scala serves, not only as the universal drawing-room for all the society of Milan but every sort of trading transaction, from horse-dealing to stock-jobbing, is carried on in the pit; so that brief and far between are the snatches of melody one can catch.”
