Conservatorio Statale di Musica "Gioachino Rossini" the Liceo passed from the city of Pesaro to the Italian Ministry of Education. Zandonai was followed by another opera composer, Franco Alfano, who held the Directorship from 1947 to 1950. The conservatory produced or participated in a number of opera productions during the 20th century, including "Il barbiere di Siviglia" (1916), "La gazza ladra" (1941), "Le Comte Ory" (1942) and later "Orfeo ed Euridice", "Suor Angelica", "Gianni Schicchi", "Il Signor Bruschino", "Francesca da Rimini", and "Dido and Aeneas". In 1999 the school was designated by the Italian government as an "Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali" (Higher Institute of Musical
La Scala into a costume. As with most of the theatres at that time, La Scala was also a casino, with gamblers sitting in the foyer. Conditions in the auditorium, too, could be frustrating for the opera lover, as Mary Shelley discovered in September 1840: At the Opera they were giving Otto Nicolai's "Templario". Unfortunately, as is well known, the theatre of La Scala serves, not only as the universal drawing-room for all the society of Milan, but every sort of trading transaction, from horse-dealing to stock-jobbing, is carried on in the pit; so that brief and far between are the snatches