Massimo Theater of Palermo
Giulia Lapetina - CC4.0
Book your guided tour
Ticket
The Teatro Massimo of Palermo, inaugurated in 1897, is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in Europe after the Opéra National in Paris and the Vienna State Opera. It was designed by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile, winner of the competition announced in 1864.
In order to erect this monumental work, radical demolitions were carried out which involved sections of the city walls, the Aragonese district and the monastic complexes of San Giuliano and Stimmate.
Representative rooms, halls, galleries and monumental stairways surround the actual theater, forming an architectural complex of grandiose proportions. The entrance is characterized by a hexastyle colonnade on a monumental staircase, on the banks of the stairs two bronze works stand out representing the Tragedy, by Benedetto Civiletti, and the Lyric, by Mario Rutelli. two floors, arranged around the hall, behind which the stage develops, two circular vestibules protrude laterally. The hall, covered by a dome, and the stage, with a pitched roof, rise up showing their formal autonomy with respect to the context of the building. The monumentality of the architectural organism was ensured by the choice of the classical "Corinthian-Italic" style. The vault of the room was frescoed by Ettore De Maria Bergler and Rocco Lentini.
Some scenes from the film The Godfather - Part III by Francis Ford Coppola were shot at the Teatro Massimo.
The theater and its history was born the legend of the Spectrum of the Teatro Massimo.
