The provincial commander of the fire brigade, Giuseppe Paduano, when asked what remained of the theatre, answered briefly: “Not much.” It wasn’t rhetoric. It was the brutal summary of hours of intervention, of a dome collapsed onto the orchestra, of gilded stuccoes and boxes gone up in smoke. Sixty people evacuated from surrounding buildings, eight suffering from smoke inhalation, two firefighters injured in the collapse of an internal structure. The Naples prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for culpable fire against unknown persons. The causes remain, for now, unknown.

The Teatro Sannazaro had been inaugurated on December 26, 1847, built on the site of the ancient cloister of the Spanish Mercedarian Fathers, designed by Fausto Niccolini, at the behest of Don Giulio Mastrilli, Duke of Marigliano. On the first evening, La petite Marquise by Henri Meilhac was performed. The stuccoes and gilding were the work of the Roman painter Vincenzo Paliotti, and the critics of the time called it a jolie bouquet — a small jewel, an elegant salon in the heart of Naples’ finest quarter. Even then, Via Chiaia.

In nearly two centuries, the history of Italian theatre passed across that stage. In 1888 the Sannazaro became the first Neapolitan theatre to be electrically lit. In 1889 Na Santarella by Eduardo Scarpetta was staged, and Scarpetta bound a decisive part of his career to the Sannazaro, until his final show, O miedeco d’ ’e pazze. In 1932 the De Filippo brothers arrived — still almost unknown, presented under pseudonyms: Eduardo as Molise, Peppino as Bertucci. They produced fifteen “novelties” in a single season. And it was there, in those years, that Eduardo De Filippo met Luigi Pirandello, beginning one of the most fertile friendships and collaborations of twentieth-century Italian theatre. Eleonora Duse had performed on that same stage. Sarah Bernhardt too.

Then came decline, as for so many Italian theatres: the Sannazaro reduced to a poorly attended cinema, the years of crisis, the dust. Rebirth came in the late 1960s with Nino Veglia and Luisa Conte, who reopened the theatre in 1971 with the Compagnia Stabile Napoletana. Luisa Conte managed it until her death in January 1994. Since then her niece Lara Sansone has taken the reins, carrying forward a tradition that brought together the classics of Neapolitan theatre and names like Peppe Barra, Lina Sastri, Biagio Izzo. The current season was sold out.

This morning Lara Sansone stood before the ruins. In tears.

I understand that weeping well. It is not only weeping for a building. It is weeping for something that cannot be measured in square metres or gilded stuccoes. Theatres are not neutral containers: they are the physical sedimentation of a community’s memory. Every seat has hosted someone who laughed, who wept, who listened. Every stage has held voices that are no more. When a theatre burns, all of this burns together — and it is not always possible to rebuild, at least not in the same way.

Yet it would be wrong to give in to catastrophism. La Fenice in Venice burned in the night between January 29 and 30, 1996, and today it stands there, restored, alive, full of audiences. The Petruzzelli in Bari burned in October 1991, remained an empty shell for nearly twenty years, and reopened in 2009. Theatres, when a community truly wants them, return. The mayor of Naples, Gaetano Manfredi, has already spoken of reconstruction. Minister Giuli has promised it will “shine again.” Let’s hope so.

The real question, however, is not only whether the Sannazaro will return. It is what will return. A theatre is not only its walls. It is the company that inhabits it, the audience that recognizes it as their own, the continuity of an artistic project. Lara Sansone has already said they will start again. Her words, reported by an actor in the company, were clear: “We will return.” I hope so. I hope so because Naples without its Bomboniera is a city slightly less capable of recognizing itself.