Press Release | Gütersloh, 01/30/2025

Bertelsmann’s ‘Puccini – Opera Meets New Media’ Exhibition a Huge Success in Milan

• 60,000 people came to see the multimedia exhibition at the Museo Teatrale alla Scala
• Thomas Rabe: “We are delighted with the great interest in the cultural heritage of the Ricordi Archive, which belongs to Bertelsmann."

Gütersloh, January 30, 2025 – The ‘Puccini – Opera Meets New Media’ exhibition by the Bertelsmann-owned Archivio Storico Ricordi in Milan has just ended with an overwhelming visitor tally. In all, 60,000 people came to the Museo Teatrale alla Scala between October 24, 2024 and January 19 of this year to see the unique exhibits and installations from the life and work of the Italian opera composer. They join the more than 10,000 visitors who enjoyed the exhibition in Berlin last spring.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini’s death in 2024, the multimedia exhibition ‘Puccini – Opera Meets New Media’ at the Museo Teatrale alla Scala presented exhibits of unique cultural and music-historical value to the public, including scores, sketches, and sheet music with handwritten notes by Giacomo Puccini. The show was accompanied by numerous events in Milan before and during the exhibition period.

Bertelsmann Chairman & CEO Thomas Rabe said: “We are delighted with the great interest in this Archivio Ricordi exhibition – first in Berlin, now in Milan. We have taken responsibility for this world-class cultural treasure, for its long-term preservation, maintenance and indexing. As a creative company with a 190-year history, we are keen to honor the creative and cultural achievements of previous generations and make them accessible to future generations.”

“Puccini - Opera Meets New Media” explores the interplay between opera and media in the early 20th century. Carefully curated by Gabriele Dotto, Ellen Lockhart and Christy Thomas Adams, the exhibition recounts the extraordinary symbiosis of economic activity and artistic creation that characterized Puccini and his publisher, Casa Ricordi, even in the last century. The exhibits and installations also tell of the challenges that the new media of the time posed to existing copyright laws and the exploitation of rights.

The exhibition “Opera Meets New Media – Puccini, Ricordi, and the Rise of the Modern Entertainment Industry” will next be on display in Gütersloh.
Further details will be provided in due course.

For more information about the exhibition and the various accompanying events, please visit www.operameetsnewmedia.com  .

Prestel (Penguin Random House) has published a lavishly illustrated companion volume to the Puccini exhibition, edited by Gabriele Dotto.

Culture@Bertelsmann
For many years, Bertelsmann has been involved in the cultural sector in a variety of ways, both on a national and international level. The Group’s Culture@Bertelsmann activities include exhibitions, readings and concerts, the “Blue Sofa” literature format, as well as efforts to preserve Europe’s cultural heritage. In addition to its involvement with the Ricordi archive, Bertelsmann, as a company with a long cinematic history of its own, is also committed to the restoration, digitization, and screening of significant silent films.

About the Archivio Storico Ricordi
The Archivio Storico Ricordi is recognized as one of the most important music collections in the world. Its holdings include a wealth of unique material spanning 200 years of Italian opera history, including 7,800 handwritten scores, more than 31,000 letters, 6,000 photographs, magazines, 10,000 libretti, and many other documents. Bertelsmann is aware of the responsibility that its ownership of this valuable cultural asset entails. The company is indexing the archive holdings according to the latest standards and making thousands of documents, stage and costume designs, libretti, and items of business correspondence available online.
www.archivioricordi.com  

About Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is a media, services, and education company with more than 80,000 employees that operates in about 50 countries around the world. It includes the entertainment group RTL Group, the trade book publisher Penguin Random House, the music company BMG, the service provider Arvato Group, Bertelsmann Marketing Services, the Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments, an international network of funds. The company generated revenues of €20.2 billion in the 2023 financial year. Bertelsmann stands for creativity and entrepreneurship. This combination promotes first-class media content and innovative service solutions that inspire customers around the world. Bertelsmann aspires to achieve climate neutrality by 2030.