I have a very vivid memory of this abandoned theatre, first for its exceptional beauty in decay and second for the attempt of entry and the physical damage it has caused me (fortunately of little account).

The theatre, although reminiscent of late Baroque architecture, was actually built in the mid-nineteenth century and has undergone several changes in several years. In its centenary it has known days of glory, considered among the greatest and most beautiful in the region and hosted operas, concerts, operettas, evenings of honor.

Inside there were three rows of lateral boxes and a central upper gallery for the less wealthy. The railing of the central gallery, as you can see in the photo, partially collapsed on one side giving a feeling of additional precariousness to the shots.

In my exploration of the upper floors the loggias were almost all extremely precarious with rotten wooden floors, so it was not wise to venture over just to look out.

The most interesting part was undoubtedly the upper gallery that, in addition to having the hanging railing, had rows of wooden chairs that had placeholder numbers applied with numerical fonts typical of the time. Two thin columns worked in the center of the gallery supported the ceiling above.

In the second half of the twentieth century an intense snowfall caused the collapse of the roof decreeing the complete ruin of the theater that was already undergoing a slow and progressive abandonment due to the advent of the most modern cinemas.

The entrance to the theater was planned because it presented some difficulties: first of all it is located in the center of the village and its perimeter gives on frequented streets.
Then the potential areas to enter, namely a gate with bars on the main street leading to an inner courtyard and a back wall, were not easily accessible.

On the matter of the people in sight, I considered being there at dawn. With a little difficulty you could climb over the wall behind which was quite high and with glass on the edge, but hoisting to see internally there was a considerable height gap (will have been 5-6 meters of altitude difference).

Despite the great effort to climb over the high and pointed gate I managed to enter an internal clearing.

The adrenaline pervaded my body both for the recent experience and for the last show that would have held the theater with its magnificence.

You could access the actual theater by going through a back yard, at that point you had to descend or through a rope already tied by some other explorer or, as I decided to do, by the dangerous staircase placed in the background of the photo.

Proceeding with extreme slowness I was able to get off and finally get on stage. It was still dawn and the light began to seep faintly from the top openings, the theater woke up for a last private and silent show.

I proceeded cautiously on the wooden floors during the general exploration because at first glance they did not seem to be either robust or so yielding.

The first photo of the exploration turned out to be the most harmful. I was studying some interesting perspectives and I decided to throw myself into one of the lodges on the ground floor, exactly the one in this photograph. I thoroughly tested the floorboards with my foot before I went in and it was holding everything perfectly. I then positioned myself with the tripod inside, but, as I moved inside, an axis in the corner collapsed and my left leg fell into a hole. Fortunately I had a good reaction time and with my elbow and back I pressed on the back wall stopping my fall into the hole. But I had all the bleeding elbow that he had rubbed on the marching wall… and I was just at the beginning and I had hours of shooting in front of me!

I did not lose heart and I washed the wound with the half-liter bottle of water that was to last me for 4-5 hours. I used half of it and immediately wrapped my elbow with a handkerchief that I had in my pocket and I fixed it with the masking tape that I carry in my backpack.

And so, like a budding Mc Gyver, I continued the whole shooting, with a burning elbow but with a beautiful experience to tell and show with my photos.