Description
The Gran Teatro La Fenice, in the San Marco district, in Campo San Fantin, is Venice's main opera house. The name is that of the mythical bird that is reborn from its own ashes, and the theater took it seriously: it has been destroyed twice, and twice rebuilt.
It began in the eighteenth century with a story of noblemen left without a theater. The society of box-holders lost the Teatro San Benedetto and decided to build a new, bigger one: they called it Fenice to symbolize their own rebirth.
Inside, the auditorium is the heart of the theater: five tiers of boxes, all stucco and gilding, with papier-mâché and wood decorations rebuilt from photographs. The carefully chosen wood also serves the acoustics. It is a philological reconstruction, redone after the last fire on the model of the nineteenth-century hall.
The Sale Apollinee are the reception rooms, and they survived the first fire: they are among the oldest parts of the theater. The largest, the Sala Grande, has three windows in the middle of the façade on the campo.
Behind the scenes the strongest sign of the reconstruction is the Sala Rossi, with a set reproducing a fragment of the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza. In the attic, under the great wooden trusses, there is an exhibition hall; there is also a permanent exhibition on Maria Callas and her Venetian years.
The New Year's Concert is a fixture every year. The program always ends with "Va' pensiero" and with the toast from La traviata.
It opened in 1792, to a design by Giannantonio Selva, winner of a competition open to foreign architects as well. There were 174 boxes, all identical, as befitted a republican theater.
A few years later the Republic fell, and in 1807 the hall dressed in silver and sky blue to welcome Napoleon. There was no royal box: a temporary one was built, then a permanent one. The imperial box was abolished in 1848 and rebuilt by the Austrians the following year.
The first fire, in 1836, probably started from a stove. The theater was rebuilt within a year, and in the nineteenth century operas by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti debuted here. Verdi brought to La Fenice, in world premieres, Rigoletto and La traviata.
In the twentieth century the theater did not stop at the repertoire: it hosted the world premieres of operas by Stravinsky, Britten and Prokofiev, as well as Luigi Nono and Bruno Maderna, and a festival of contemporary music.
The second fire, on January 29, 1996, was arson: two electricians, behind on their work, set a small fire to avoid a penalty. The theater was destroyed.
While the works lasted, the opera season moved to the Palafenice, a temporary structure at Tronchetto, and to the Teatro Malibran.
It was rebuilt "as it was, where it was" to a design by Aldo Rossi, and in December 2003 Riccardo Muti conducted the reopening concert.
Don't miss
• The auditorium.
• The Sale Apollinee.
• The New Year's Concert.
Did you know?
• One of those guilty of the 1996 fire fled and was caught years later on the border between Mexico and Belize.
• The 1789 call for entries asked for a water entrance wide enough for gondolas.
It began in the eighteenth century with a story of noblemen left without a theater. The society of box-holders lost the Teatro San Benedetto and decided to build a new, bigger one: they called it Fenice to symbolize their own rebirth.
Inside, the auditorium is the heart of the theater: five tiers of boxes, all stucco and gilding, with papier-mâché and wood decorations rebuilt from photographs. The carefully chosen wood also serves the acoustics. It is a philological reconstruction, redone after the last fire on the model of the nineteenth-century hall.
The Sale Apollinee are the reception rooms, and they survived the first fire: they are among the oldest parts of the theater. The largest, the Sala Grande, has three windows in the middle of the façade on the campo.
Behind the scenes the strongest sign of the reconstruction is the Sala Rossi, with a set reproducing a fragment of the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza. In the attic, under the great wooden trusses, there is an exhibition hall; there is also a permanent exhibition on Maria Callas and her Venetian years.
The New Year's Concert is a fixture every year. The program always ends with "Va' pensiero" and with the toast from La traviata.
It opened in 1792, to a design by Giannantonio Selva, winner of a competition open to foreign architects as well. There were 174 boxes, all identical, as befitted a republican theater.
A few years later the Republic fell, and in 1807 the hall dressed in silver and sky blue to welcome Napoleon. There was no royal box: a temporary one was built, then a permanent one. The imperial box was abolished in 1848 and rebuilt by the Austrians the following year.
The first fire, in 1836, probably started from a stove. The theater was rebuilt within a year, and in the nineteenth century operas by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti debuted here. Verdi brought to La Fenice, in world premieres, Rigoletto and La traviata.
In the twentieth century the theater did not stop at the repertoire: it hosted the world premieres of operas by Stravinsky, Britten and Prokofiev, as well as Luigi Nono and Bruno Maderna, and a festival of contemporary music.
The second fire, on January 29, 1996, was arson: two electricians, behind on their work, set a small fire to avoid a penalty. The theater was destroyed.
While the works lasted, the opera season moved to the Palafenice, a temporary structure at Tronchetto, and to the Teatro Malibran.
It was rebuilt "as it was, where it was" to a design by Aldo Rossi, and in December 2003 Riccardo Muti conducted the reopening concert.
Don't miss
• The auditorium.
• The Sale Apollinee.
• The New Year's Concert.
Did you know?
• One of those guilty of the 1996 fire fled and was caught years later on the border between Mexico and Belize.
• The 1789 call for entries asked for a water entrance wide enough for gondolas.