Teatro Massimo | Palermo, Italy

[therock]

[Eletrix]

F A N T A S T I C O! 10 e lode!:-P
Grazie therock, ti amooooooooo


PALERMO

[therock]

Originally Posted by ELETRIX

F A N T A S T I C O! 10 e lode!:-P
Grazie therock, ti amooooooooo


PALERMO

DI NIENTE FIGURATI , E' MOLTO BELLO LO MERITAVA!

[Eletrix]

Teatro Massimo di Palermo
The Teatro Massimo in Palermo, dedicated to King Victor Emanuel II, was inaugurated on 16th May 1897 with a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff conducted by Leopoldo Mugnone. The programme for the season also included Ponchielli’s La Gioconda and Puccini’s La Bohème. The singers were among the best of the day, but one of the young tenors outshone all the others, one destined to be acclaimed in opera houses around the world: Enrico Caruso. It was a Sunday, and Palermo eagerly awaited the memorable event, with its elegant accompaniment of stately carriages, fine dresses, and scintillating jewels.

The inaugural performance took place twenty-two years after the laying of the foundation stone on 12th January 1875, which put an end to a tormented series of vicissitudes dating back another ten years. For some long time there had been talk of building a great opera theatre in Palermo, a theatre worthy of the most important city in southern Italy after Naples, and in 1864 the mayor, Marquis Rudinì, announced that an international competition would be held to decide who should design it. The fact that thirty-five experts of various nationalities participated in the competition reflects the cultural atmosphere of the period and the close ties between Sicily and the rest of Europe. The adjudicating commission was presided over by Gottfried Semper, assisted by Mariano Falcini and Saverio Cavallari, and the competition was finally won by the Palermo architect Giovan Battista Filippo Basile.
On the European scene, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo represents the high point in the development of what is generally considered to be the “Italian-style theatre” into the “opera house” type, a process of development that imbued the scene of operatic performances with elitist and indeed even sacred qualities. There were two main lines of development: one French, by Charles Garnier, that led to the architecture of the Opéra de Paris, and one German, by way of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Gottfried Semper, that led to Richard Wagner’s theatre at Bayreuth.
Basile had something in common with both these schools of research. However, his prime interest was to perfect the typical Italian model, concentrating on the development of functional rationality, e.g. using traditional materials but new construction systems - as at La Scala in Milan, designed by Giuseppe Piermarini - and above all making use of classical features. The classical world inspired Basile in his use of the laws of harmony and balance in relation to matters of proportion and size, where he was guided by the strict laws of geometry of the ancient golden section: Basile was thus able to combine his wide knowledge of classical and ancient Sicilian architecture with state-of-the-art technical and scientific know-how.

THE INTERIOR. - Beyond the pronaos, inside the theatre itself, the wide foyer opens into a square hall that leads to the auditorium and the stairs up to the tiers of boxes. The foyer presents a majestic frieze over the entrance, enormous candelabra, elegant decorative pillar strips, and a bust of Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile, a work by Antonio Ugo. Above the foyer, on the piano nobile, vestibules and corridors open on to the Royal Box. The auditorium measures 19.75 metres by 26.50 and is horseshoe-shaped, like the Opéra in Paris, the Opera in Vienna, and the Carlo Felice opera house in Genoa. Divided into five tiers of boxes and the gallery, it was originally meant to seat 3000 persons, but this number was later reduced to 500 in the stalls, 1200 in the five tiers of boxes, and 500 in the gallery, for a total of 2200 seats. Current regulations permit seating for no more than 1350 spectators. The auditorium is covered by a bronze cupola, measuring over 28 metres in diameter, of remarkable technological daring.
The stage is 28.50 metres wide and 38.80 metres deep (second only to the Opéra in Paris), while the proscenium, measuring 14 metres, is one of the largest in Europe.

Basile made sure that every spectator could enjoy the best possible view from all angles of the auditorium, while to guarantee the almost perfect acoustics (even today among the best of all European theatres) he made use of the most advanced of technical expedients of the day.

The magnificent decoration of the auditorium, with its colour scheme of gold and red, is made up of elements of wood and stucco covered in pure gold, the work of Salvatore Valenti, and of delicate paintings on the different tiers of boxes, depicting flowers, baskets of fruit, and theatre masks, culminating in the splendid ceiling painting by Rocco Lentini, portraying The Triumph of Music.

[Eletrix]

The Interior, pics:







PALERMO!

[DamienK]

8/10

[GuilhermeC]

Wow very nice! The facade could be a bit better
9/10

[Phobos]

7.5/10
I like the stone's color

[Jakob]

Assolutamente fantastico! Do 10/10 punti... ,)

[Fabio]

7.5/10

looks nice

[Fly Pan Am]

8/10

The colout is very nice.

[Raine]

9/10 most off all for the interior

[gohcan]

Inside is awesome
8.5/10

[Valia]

8/10

the facade is elegant, like anothers many builds in the world, and the stalls is very pleasant

[chukchi]

9/10 so beautiful

[FJP]

Classic and Mediterranean style, 9/10

[Ellatur]

the interior looks very grand 9/10

[El_Greco]

9.5/10

[Sinjin P.]

9/10

[-Corey-]

10/10