Teatro Massimo

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Teatro Massimo

The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele is an opera house and opera company located on the Piazza Verdi in Palermo, Sicily. It was dedicated to King Victor Emanuel II.

An international competition for the creation of the opera house was announced by the Palermo Council in 1864, primarily at the instigation of the mayor, Antonio Starrabba di Rudinì. For many years there had been talk of building a big new theatre in Palermo, worthy of the second biggest city in southern Italy after Naples and designed to promote the image of the city following the recent national unity.

The opera house was built by the architect Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile and, following his death in 1891, construction was overseen by his son, Ernesto. Construction started on 12 January 1874 but was stopped for eight years from 1882 till 1890. Finally, on 16 May 1897, twenty-two years after the laying of the foundation stone, the second largest opera theatre after Palais Garnier in Paris was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi's Falstaff.

The Teatro Massimo is the largest theatre in Italy (and the third largest opera house in Europe). Basile was inspired by ancient and classical Sicilian architecture and, thus, the exterior was designed in the high neoclassical style incorporating elements of the Greek temples at Selinunte and Agrigento. Realized in the late-Renaissance style, the auditorium was planned for 3,000 people, but, in its current format, it seats 1,350, with 7 tiers of boxes rising up around an inclined stage, and shaped in the typical horseshoe style.

In 1974 the house was closed to complete renovations required by updated safety regulations, but cost over-runs, corruption, and political in-fighting all added to the delay and it remained closed for twenty-three years, finally re-opening on 12 May 1997, four days before its centenary. The opera season started again in 1999, although Verdi's Aida was performed in 1998 while work in progress continued.

During the restoration regular opera seasons were performed in Teatro Politeama Garibaldi, a minor building not far from Teatro Massimo. In summer a few performances, usually concerts, ballet and operetta, are held in Teatro della Verdura.

In recent years “charges of corruption and political meddling…along with budget deficits and heavy debts” have plagued the house, but, under its part-English music director, Jan Latham Koenig, it is reported that it is once again on track.^[1]