Palazzo Capranica

The Teatro Capranica is a theatre situated at 101 Piazza Capranica in the Colonna district of Rome. Originally constructed in 1679 by the Capranica family and housed in the early Renaissance Palazzo Capranica, it was the second public theatre to open in Rome. It was the site of many premieres of Baroque operas including Caldara's Tito e Berenice, Scarlatti's Griselda, and Vivaldi's Ercole su'l Termodonte. The Capranica ceased operating as a full-scale theatre and opera house in 1881 and in 1922 was converted into a cinema. Following the closure of the cinema in 2000, it has functioned on a hire basis as a conference and performance venue.

The palazzo in which the theatre is situated was constructed in the mid-15th century by Cardinal Domenico Capranica to serve as both his own residence and the future home of the Almo Collegio Capranica, a college for young clerics which he founded in 1457. One of the few remaining examples of Roman residential architecture of the early renaissance, it has a large side tower and a piano nobile lit by three cross mullion windows as well as three windows in the late Gothic style which suggest that the palace may have incorporated an earlier building on the site. In the late 1670s, another member of the family, Pompeo Capranica, had a private theatre carved out from existing family apartments without changing the exterior of the building. The theatre was inaugurated on 6 January 1679 with Arcangelo Corelli leading the orchestra for the premiere of Bernardo Pasquini's opera Dov'è amore è pietà.

With the accession of Pope Alexander VIII, Pompeo Capranica and his brother Federico received permission to enlarge the theatre and open it to the public. They entrusted the task to Carlo Buratti (a student of Carlo Fontana) who completely rebuilt the theatre in 1694 transforming it into the standard U-shape with rich ornamentation and 6 tiers of 26 boxes each. It re-opened as a public theatre (Rome's second) on 18 January 1695 with a performance of Clearco in Negroponte a three-act opera jointly composed by Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier, Tommaso Gaffi and Carlo Francesco Cesarini. However, the new theatre still lacked a public entrance opening onto the street. Audiences could only enter through the workshop of a carpenter on the ground floor of the palazzo. His lease required him to close his workshop during the opera season and to provide at his own expense a wooden staircase to enable the spectators to climb into the theatre. It was a situation that was not be rectified until the 19th century.

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