Teatro Massimo (Palermo)

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Teatro Massimo
View into the auditorium

The Teatro Massimo is Palermo's opera house .

It was built in the historicism style on the Piazza Verdi at the former west gate of the old town of Palermo. A church and the monastery of San Giuliano previously stood on the site. Both were demolished to make way for the new building. The architect was Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile , who began construction in 1875. After his death, the building was completed in 1897 by his son Ernesto Basile .

The facade of the theater shows stylistic elements of historicism. In front of the main entrance is a portico made up of six Corinthian columns. A monumental flight of steps leads to the portico with two lion sculptures on either side. The opera hall is spanned with a large dome. It consists of an iron structure that is movably mounted to compensate for displacements caused by temperature fluctuations. The hall was designed by various artists and offers around 1300 seats.

On May 16, 1897, the Teatro Massimo opened with Verdi's opera Falstaff . After a "temporary closure" in 1974 due to structural defects, the Teatro Massimo remained closed for over 20 years due to corrupt, mafia-like building policies. It was only in 1997, thanks to the efforts of Leoluca Orlando, to mark its centenary with Verdi's opera Nabucco under Claudio Abbado . Today the Teatro Massimo symbolizes Palermo's struggle for his “political and cultural resurrection” - against the Mafia.

The Teatro Massimo was the location of the final scenes of Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather - Part III , which played the opera Cavalleria rusticana . The stairwell and stage hall of the house, which was still closed at the time, were restored to make it suitable for films for the occasion.

literature

  • Brigit Carnabuci: Sicily. Greek temples, Roman villas, Norman cathedrals and baroque cities in the center of the Mediterranean (=  DuMont art travel guide ). 6th, updated edition. DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7701-4385-6 .

Web links

Commons : Teatro Massimo (Palermo)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Greetings from Sicily. In: www.tagesspiegel.de. Retrieved June 11, 2016 .
  2. ^ The Godfather Part 3, film locations

Coordinates: 38 ° 7 '12.9 "  N , 13 ° 21' 26.2"  E