Designed in 1845 by Vincenzo Ghinelli and built right against the city's western bastions, the theatre's intimate scale and red-and-gold tiers are typical of an Italian provincial opera house of its era. The auditorium seats around 360 in three levels of horseshoe boxes.
It still hosts a regular winter season of opera, concerts and prose theatre. Even outside performance time it can be visited as part of the city walls walk — the foundations rest directly on a 15th-century rampart. The view from the upper boxes is the better one.