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In 1774, the San
Benedetto Theatre, which had been
Venice's leading opera house for more
than forty years, burned to the ground.
No sooner had it been rebuilt than a
legal dispute broke out between the
company managing it and the owners, the
Venier family. The issue was decided in
favor of the Veniers. As a result, the
theatre company decided to build a new
opera house of its own on the Campo San
Fantin. The construction began in June
1790, and by May 1792 the theatre was
completed. It was named "La Fenice", in
reference to the company's survival,
first of the fire, then of the loss of
its former quarters. La Fenice was
inaugurated on
May 16,
1792
with an opera by
Giovanni Paisiello
entitled
I Giochi di Agrigento.
From the beginning of the 19th century,
La Fenice acquired a European
reputation.
Rossini
mounted two major productions in the
theatre and
Bellini
had two operas premiered there.
Donizetti,
fresh from his triumphs in
Milan
and
Naples,
returned to Venice in 1836, after an
absence of seventeen years.
In December 1836,
disaster struck again when the theatre
was destroyed by fire. However, it was
quickly rebuilt with a design provided
by the architect-engineer team of the
brothers,
Tommaso Meduna
and
Giambattista Meduna
[1]
La Fenice once again rose from its ashes
to open its doors on the evening of
December 26, 1837.
Giuseppe Verdi's
association with La Fenice began in
1844, with a performance of
Ernani
during the
Carnival
season. Over the next thirteen years,
the premieres of
Attila,
Rigoletto,
La Traviata
and
Simon Boccanegra
took place there. During the
First World War,
La Fenice was closed, but reopened to
again become the scene of much activity,
attracting many of the world's greatest
singers and conductors. In 1930, the
Venice Biennale
initiated the First International
Festival of Contemporary Music, which
brought such composers as
Stravinsky
and
Britten,
and more recently
Berio,
Nono
and
Bussotti,
to write for La Fenice. On
29 January
1996,
it was completely destroyed by fire.
Arson was immediately suspected. In
March 2001, a court in Venice found two
electricians guilty of setting the fire.
Enrico Carella and his cousin,
Massimiliano Marchetti, appeared to have
set the building ablaze because their
company was facing heavy fines over
delays in repair work. Carella, the
company's owner, was sent to prison for
seven years, while Marchetti a six-year
sentence.
After various
delays, reconstruction began in earnest
in 2001. In 650 days, a team of two
hundred plasterers, artists,
woodworkers, and other craftsman
succeeded in recreating the ambience of
the old theatre at a cost of some €90
million. La Fenice was rebuilt in
19th-century style on the basis of a
design by architect
Aldo Rossi.
It reopened on
14 December
2003
with an inaugural concert of
Beethoven,
Wagner,
and
Stravinsky.
The first opera production was
La Traviata
in November, 2004. Critical response to
the rebuilt La Fenice was mixed. The
music critic of the rightwing paper
Il Tempo,
Enrico Cavalotti, was satisfied. He
found the colours a bit bright but the
sound good and compact. For his
colleague Dino Villatico of the leftwing
La Repubblica,
however, the acoustics of the new hall
lacked resonance and the colours were
painfully bright. He found it "kitsch, a
fake imitation of the past". He said
that "the city should have had the nerve
to build a completely new theater;
Venice betrayed its innovative past by
ignoring it". However, for many
Venetians, a painful wound in the
historical, much-admired cityscape has
been healed.
SEASON 2009
January 1st
(11:15 am)
concert - Teatro la Fenice
NEW YEARS EVE CONCERT (televised
live on RAI UNO)
Georges Prętre, director
January 23rd (7:00 pm,)
25th (3:30 pm,) 27th, 29th (7:00 pm,)
31st (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
DIE TOTE STADT (La cittŕ morta)
– di Erich Wolfgang Korngold
January 30th (8:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
ELIAHU INBAL
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice
February 1st (5:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
ELIAHU INBAL
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice
February 19th (7:00 pm,)
22nd (3:30 pm,) 24th, 25th, 27th (7:00
pm,) 28th (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE di Charles
Gounod
Direttore: Carlo Montanaro
February 21st
carnival ball &
show - Teatro La Fenice
La cavalchina
AMORE E ILLUSIONE
Masked Grand Ball with performances ŕ
l’ancienne
March
1st (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE di Charles
Gounod
Direttore: Carlo Montanaro
March 6th, 7th (8:00 pm,)
8th (5:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
Gerd Albrecht
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice
March
14th (8:00 pm,) 15th (5:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
Bruno Bartoletti
Orchestra & Coro del Teatro La Fenice
March 20th, 21st (8:00
pm,) 22nd (5:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
Christian Arming
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice
April 24th (5:00 pm,) 26th
(3:00 pm,) 28th, 29th, 30th (7:00 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
MARIA STUARDA, by Gaetano
Donizetti
Direttore: Bruno Campanella
May 2nd, 3rd (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
MARIA STUARDA, by Gaetano
Donizetti
Direttore: Bruno Campanella
May 22nd (7:00 pm,) 23rd,
24th (3:30 [m,) 26th, 27th, 29th (7:00
pm,) 20th (5:00 pm,) 31st (7:00 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
MADAME BUTTERFLY, by Giacomo
Puccini
Direttore: Eliahu Inbal
June
25th (6:00 pm,) 28th (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
Götterdämmerung (Crepuscolo
degli dei), Richard Wagner
Director: Jeffrey Tate
July 1st (6:00 pm,) 4th
(3:30 pm,) 7th (6:00 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
Götterdämmerung (Crepuscolo
degli dei), Richard Wagner
Director: Jeffrey Tate
July 3rd, 5th (8:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
Ottavio Dantone
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice
July 11th (8:00 pm)
concert - Teatro
La Fenice
Kurt Masur
Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice
September 6th, 8th, 9th,
10th, 11th (7:00 pm,) 12th, 13th (3:30
pm,) 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th (7:00 pm,)
19th (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
LA TRAVIATA
Director: Myung-Whun Chung
September 29th (7:00 pm,)
30th (5:00 pm)
ballet - Teatro La
Fenice
Tod in Venedig Johann Sebastian
Bach e Richard Wagner
Hamburg Ballett
John Neumeier
October 1st, 2nd (7:00
pm,) 3rd (3:30 pm)
ballet - Teatro La
Fenice
Tod in Venedig Johann Sebastian
Bach e Richard Wagner
Hamburg Ballett
John Neumeier
October 27th, 29th (7:00
pm,) 31st (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
Il killer di parole, by Claudio
Ambrosini
Director: Tito Ceccherini
November 3rd (7:00 pm,)
5th (5:00 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
Il killer di parole, by Claudio
Ambrosini
Director: Tito Ceccherini
December 11th (7:00 pm,)
13th (3:30 pm,) 16th, 18th (7:00 pm,)
20th (3:30 pm)
opera - Teatro La
Fenice
Šárka di Leoš Janácek &
Cavalleria rusticana, by Pietro Mascagni
Director: Eliahu Inbal
December 30th (8:00 pm,)
31st (4:00 pm,) January 1st (11:15 am)
concert - Teatro la Fenice
NEW YEARS EVE CONCERT
Georges Prętre, director
To receive additional information on La
Fenice Theater or to book tickets for
any of the events indicated above please
contact our concierge:
Valentina |
