Federico Del Cupolo Federico Del Cupolo Federico Del Cupolo (Naples, 1884-Milan, 1974) was an Italian orchestra conductor whose activity mainly focussed on Italian opera. His career developed in Italy and abroad spanning 60 years and including some recordings from the early 1950s which have been recently resumed for their historical and artistic significance. In 1929 in Philadelphia he recorded the ouverture of "La gazza ladra" by Rossini; in 1951 he recorded with the Orchestra of La Scala the operas "L'arlesiana" and "Adriana Lecouvreur" by Francesco Cilea, the latter interpreted by Mafalda Favero, Elena Nicolai and Nicola Filacuridi. In 1953, he recorded two operas
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