It is always a pleasure to follow a project from the early stages till its completion. In a previous post published in October 2019, we announced that Prato's Museo del Tessuto (Textile Museum) had launched a crowdfunding campaign on Eppela under the title "The Lost Costume" (Il Costume Ritrovato). The campaign hoped to restore the newly-found costumes from the première of Puccini's Turandot. The costumes, inspired by the Orient, were designed by legendary La Scala costumier Luigi Sapelli, better known as Caramba, and were considered lost.
The museum reached its goal a month later thanks to contributions from almost 170 private individuals from eight different countries, as well as local companies and associations, but kept the campaign open to gather more funds to restore the stage jewels accompanying the costumes and the goal was again met. In 2020, while museums closed because of the Coronavirus campaign, the Prato Textile Museum focused on the restoration process, while announcing the exceeding funds of the crowdfunding would be used for an exhibition.
The event was finally launched yesterday with a Zoom press conference that revealed how the original planned display of the restored costumes and accessories has now become the centerpiece of a temporary exhibition about Puccini's Turandot, a wonderful project celebrating opera and the Orient through costumes, artworks and interior design pieces.
"Turandot e l’Oriente fantastico di Puccini, Chini e Caramba" (Turandot and the Fantastic East by Puccini, Chini and Caramba; planned dates, that may be subject to Coronavirus restrictions: 22 May - 21 November 2021).
The inspiration for the event came from the restored costumes and accessories and from the beautiful story behind them. In 2017, the museum got a phone call from Sardinia where a trunk of costumes, wigs and jewellery had resurfaced: investigations led the curators to realise the costumes had belonged to the famous Pratese soprano Iva Pacetti and were the long-lost gowns for Puccini's Turandot opera was first staged at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 25th April 1926.
Daniela Degl'Innocenti, curator at the Textile Museum and co-curator with Monica Zavattaro of the "Turandot" exhibition, explained during yesterday's press conference that Iva Pacetti had the costumes because sopranos often kept their own wardrobes or personal archives of costumes and accessories to facilitate their casting in a specific role. Pacetti probably received the costumes in 1939 and the curator found a photograph from 1942 in which the soprano was wearing the costume and the crown (but originally the costumes were worn by Rosa Raisa, the first soprano in history to interpret the role of the Ice Princess, for the opera's world premiere of Turandot in 1926).
One of the two Caramba costumes was in a particularly bad state with various parts of the beautiful woven fabric decorated with metallic thread presenting holes and lacerations as well as dirt. Degl'Innocenti highlighted that the more resistant metallic threads had damaged the delicate silk parts and that there were sections more deteriorated than others, in particular the flowy, floor-touching sleeves, the train and sections of the neckline. So these parts were reinforced with needle and thread and with special support fabrics like tulle.
The lavish crown is inspired by Oriental accessories, but also features elements borrowed from Art Deco, and it is a genuine artwork of costume jewellery, decorated with flowers, butterflies and pearls. Among the pieces there is also a brass hairpin with multi-coloured gems and with two long pendants decorated with pearls and red and blue rhinestones. The jewels were very fragile and they lost some beads and pearls; some sections were oxidised, others lost their shape, and a few parts needed soldering. The lavish crown was badly damaged, only the tiara was intact, and some butterflies and peonies had detached from the main structure. The jewels were cleaned and repaired and visually enhanced with multi-coloured gems from Milan-based company Corbella, an official supplier of La Scala that originally made the pieces in 1926.
The costumes were restored by the Consorzio Tela di Penelope in Prato, while the jewellery pieces were entrusted to the care of Elena Della Schiava, Tommaso Pestelli and Filippo Tattini, who restored them to new splendour.
The curators turned the costumes into the heart of the exhibition and wove around the restored pieces the story of the events that led to the design of these costumes, analysing the genesis of the opera and the artistic partnership established between Giacomo Puccini and his friend, the Italian painter, decorator, graphic artist and ceramicist Galileo Chini (1873-1956), and their subsequent collaboration with the Teatro alla Scala’s costume designer, Caramba.
Puccini wanted indeed to make sure that an artist with a first-hand experience of the East worked on the opera to recreate real Eastern atmospheres and Galileo Chini had spent three years, from 1911 to 1913, in Siam (present-day Thailand). Chini was commissioned to paint the Throne Hall of the Palace of King Rama VI, and had witnessed the funeral of his predecessor and the incoronation of the new king. Fascinated by the art and culture of the country, Chini started collecting Chinese, Japanese and Siamese artifacts, that he then brought back to Italy and that influenced him in his work, inspiring him also the set designs for Turandot.
In 1950 the artist donated his collection to the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in Florence: only a few of the preserved objects from this precious collection are usually on display to the public, but the exhibition at Prato's Textile Museum will allow visitors to see some of these tresures as the institution borrowed over 100 objects from the Chini Collection for the "Turandot" exhibition (other loans for this exhibition came from the Uffizi Galleries and the Museo Teatrale alla Scala and the Teatro alla Scala).
The narration starts in the Museum's Historical Textile Room where visitors will be able to admire precious textiles, cotton and silk sashes for men and women's costumes made in India and produced for the Thai market; Indian shawls and Japanese fabrics; textiles for altars and wooden bowls for incense offerings decorated with mother-of-pearl inserts; porcelain pieces, musical instruments, sculptures, weapons and artefacts of Thai and Chinese production, such as an opium pipe with tassels or a porcelain headrest (also known as "opium pillows" - opium users claimed that, after smoking opium for a while, even a hard pillow felt as soft as a cloud).
These pieces became starting points for Chini, inspirations for his numerous paintings: the curators of the exhibition invite indeed visitors to make comparisons between the objects and Chini's still lives and see how the Buddha statues or moon guitars and monochord lutes often appear in these works.
Chini admired the natural landscapes, the vegetation, flowers and cultivations of Siam; he was struck by the boats carrying goods across rivers and was enthralled and enchanted by dance and theatre. Quite a few objects in his collection relate indeed to the stage, from papier mâché masks to puppets and exquisitely refined costumes. The exhibition features for example a woman's costume with intricate embroideries made with metal threads, accessorised with a crown in lacquered carved leather.
Among the most beautiful objects there is a Psyche table mirror that may have belonged to Turandot, but there are also more humble pieces such as shoes and sandals, glass bead necklaces and rattan and wicker balls, proving that Chini wasn't just attracted by luxury pieces, but he was also interested in the popular aspects of the local culture.
Another section of the museum will be dedicated to the set designs - from the Ricordi Historical Archive in Milan - for Turandot that were influenced by Chini's experience in Siam and by the local celebrations he took part in. Some paintings in this sections, on loan from the Gallery of Modern Art of Palazzo Pitti, such as a large canvas depicting Chinese New Year in Bangkok are juxtaposed to objects like a striking dragon head from the Chini Collection.
Fashion fans will fall in love with the 30 original costumes (lost for a while, but then found again in the '70s) from the Sartoria Devalle archive in Turin included in this section: if you're an opera fan you may recognise costumes for the Emperor, Calaf, Ping, Pong and Pang, the Mandarin (this one features an astonishing embroidery of a lion), as well as the minor roles of the Priests, Handmaids, Guards and Citizens (these costumes will definitely inspire to more expert visitors comparisons with designs donned by the Ballets Russes dancers).
The exhibition is completed by the original costume designs and pochoir prints created for the opera by the extraordinary illustrator Umberto Brunelleschi, the artist Puccini initially appointed to the task, plus the original poster from the opera's premiere and the piano and vocal score illustrated with the famous image of Turandot created by Leopoldo Metlicovitz, one of the most iconic images of Italian opera of all time and the main image for this exhibition as well.
"Turandot" was planned as a multidisciplinary and wide-ranging exhibition and it is a genuine celebration for the senses: your eyes fill with beauty when you contemplate these pieces and each object reveals a piece of the puzzle behind the artistic genesis of the opera. Last but not least, the exhibition is also an indirect tribute to the Asian community of Prato, the city with the second largest Chinese immigrant population in Italy.
Visitors who may have time or who may be spending a few days around Prato and Florence can complete the itinerary with a tour of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology in Florence that is also organising its own exhibition to showcase additional treasures from the Chini Collection.
Images credits for this post
1.
Luigi Sapelli (Caramba)
Costume for Turandot [Act I]
Prato, Textile Museum
2.
Luigi Sapelli (Caramba)
Costume for Turandot [Act II]
Prato, Textile Museum
3.
Corbella, Milan
Crown for Turandot [Act II]
Prato, Textile Museum
4.
Galileo Chini
External view of the Imperial Palace
Sketch for Turandot
Act III Scene II (fourth and final version)
1926
Milan, Archivio Storico Ricordi
5.
Galileo Chini
Great Forecourt of the Palace
Sketch for Turandot
Act II Scene II (fourth and final version)
1924
Milan, Archivio Storico Ricordi, ICON000206
6.
Theatre mask
Thailand, early 20th century
Galileo Chini Collection, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, Florence
7.
Pots with lids
China, early 20th century
Galileo Chini Collection, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, Florence
8.
Dragon mask
Chinese community in Thailand, late 19th century
Galileo Chini Collection, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, Florence
9.
Leopoldo Metlicovitz
Poster for Turandot
Milan, Archivio Storico Ricordi
10.
Carp dish
China late 19th century – early 20th century
Galileo Chini Collection, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, Florence
11.
Leopoldo Metlicovitz
Cover for the deluxe edition of the piano-vocal score, 1926
Milan, Archivio Storico Ricordi
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