A first part of the museum was established in 1911 with the purchase at an auction of a collection that was intended to document the history of the show from ancient to contemporary times.
The exhibition area of the museum consists of 14 rooms and exhibits marl busts and portraits of many composers, conductors and performers of European music of the past two centuries, ancient musical instruments.

 

Among valuable works exposed in the museum:

 

-A virginal (a spinet) of the seventeenth century fully decorated;
- A collection of porcelain (from the artistic creations of Capodimonte, Meissen and Doccia) depicting masks of the commedia dell'arte, musicians, musical instruments and dancers;
- The archaeological section with collection of ancient vases depicting dancers, musical instruments, gladiatorial shows and a collection of oil lamps and statuettes of dancers, acrobats;
- A collection of puppets from the Italian tradition since the eighteenth century. At the Museum it is attached the Library with a collection of books consisting of over 150,000 volumes that make it one of the most important libraries in richness and completeness of the world collections for the theater, opera, music and dance. They are part of the bibliographic heritage of rare volumes from the end of the fifteenth century with representations relating to the theme the sacred and the profane and pastoral tales, illustrated valuable editions of the seventeenth century, and a large number of copies autographed and annotated.
The archive section of the library houses extensive collections of sketches of scenes, theatrical sketches, photographs, playbills and posters, opera librettos, letters of actors, directors, composers and singers who over time have collaborated with the Teatro alla Scala from centuries seventeenth to the present day. There are also a number of handwritten musical scores by Verdi, Rossini, Puccini, Donizetti and are also kept some original music manuscripts the complete works.