La Scala

La Scala, formally the Teatro alla Scala, opened in Milan in 1778 on a site previously occupied by the church of Santa Maria alla Scala, from which the theater takes its name, to a Neoclassical design by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini. Built after a fire destroyed Milan's previous ducal theater, La Scala quickly became one of the most important opera houses in Italy and Europe, hosting the premieres of numerous operas by composers including Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini across the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Allied bombing severely damaged the theater in August 1943, destroying much of its auditorium, and it was rebuilt and reopened in 1946 with a celebrated concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The theater's horseshoe-shaped auditorium, tiered with boxes in the traditional Italian opera house arrangement, was preserved in the postwar reconstruction and remains in use today alongside an adjoining museum devoted to the history of opera and the theater itself.