The Lisio Foundation is pleased to announce its collaboration with the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo, presenting the distributed exhibition Caterina Cornaro experience. A queen to remember open to the public until 30 November 2025, as part of the Donizetti Opera 2025 festival and in collaboration with Accademia Carrara, Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai, Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio and Museo delle Storie di Bergamo.

Caterina Cornaro is a lyric tragedy in a prologue and two acts, with libretto by Giacomo Sacchero, composed between October 1842 and spring 1843, and premiered for the first time on 18 January 1844 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples.

The experience dedicated to Caterina Cornaro, curated by Tania Cefis, Clelia Epis, Luca Loglio, Alessio Francesco Marinoni Palmieri, was born around the work of the same name by Gaetano Donizetti, who returns to the stage of the Bergamo theater after thirty years, as the inaugural title of the Donizetti Opera 2025 festival.

This return also marks the launch of a widespread cultural project, capable of intertwining artistic and musical languages and institutions of the city in the name of a fascinating female figure, suspended between history, myth and theatre.

The exhibition hosted at the Donizetti Studio offers a historical and theatrical journey that accompanies visitors from the figure of Caterina Cornaro – Queen of Cyprus, who lived between Venice, Asolo and the eastern Mediterranean – through the opera that Donizetti dedicated to her in 1844, to the first modern performance according to the composer's wishes, which we will see on stage this year.

Through sketches, historical images and reconstructions of sumptuous stage costumes – created by the Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio in Florence – the exhibition tells the story of how a female character from the Renaissance has lived on through centuries of art to the present day.

For the occasion, faithful reconstructions of the stage costumes worn by Caterina Cornaro in the first Neapolitan performance in 1844 (two dresses) have been created, alongside the sumptuous dress worn by the queen in Francesco Hayez's famous painting “Caterina Cornaro receives the announcement of her deposition from the Kingdom of Cyprus”, 1842, kept at the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. 

This is a unique opportunity, as for the first time the costumes from a Donizetti premiere have been completely reconstructed, restoring to the public the aesthetic, symbolic and narrative power of costume as a fundamental element of nineteenth-century theatrical language.

Also on display is the stage costume, loaned by Casa d'Arte Fiore, worn by soprano Denia Mazzola, who starred in the 1995 Bergamo production directed by Gianandrea Gavazzeni.

ith Caterina Cornaro, Bergamo celebrates the return of a queen and, at the same time, the vitality of a city that continues to build culture through collaboration between its most representative institutions.

A widespread exhibition that intertwines history and modernity, research and entertainment, art and music through the city locations networked by the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, which together construct a unified narrative in which the figure of Caterina Cornaro becomes a path on the map of Donizetti's city, extending from the theatre to the museum, from the library to the history of the city walls.

Historical Research | Research Centre – Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio

Alessio Francesco Palmieri-Marinoni

In collaboration with:

Clelia Epis, Tania Cefis, Luca Loglio

“Colonna” damask production

Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio, Florence

Historical Tailoring – Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio

Orietta Ciccarelli, Marika Romagnolo, Luca Dragoni, Alice Airoldi

Reconstruction of decorative motifs – Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio

Luca Dragoni, Elena Cadoni

Hand embroidery – Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio

Maria Angela Palmieri Marinoni

Hand-painted textile decoration – Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio

Mara Cappelli

Machine embroidery

La Nazionale Manifatture S.r.l.
Giovanni Mario Nizzola, Ilaria Sgandurra, Alberto Nizzola, Lucia Croce

Filmmakers:

Giancarlo De Angeli, Mario Digiglio

Special thanks for their valuable collaboration to:

Silvana Monti Fashion School

Marina Primi, Manifattura Primi S.a.s.

Nicoletta Tognoni

Giovanni Mario Nizzola

The sketches by Filippo Del Buono for Caterina Cornaro by Gaetano Donizetti (inv. 231 and 232) are kindly provided by the Fondazione Adelaide e Maria Antonietta Pagliara – Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa. Special thanks to Opera Rara for kindly granting permission to use the audio recording of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Caterina Cornaro.