Teatro La Fenice Historical Timeline

A burning history

Teatro La Fenice was built between 1790 and 1792 to replace the Teatro San Benedetto, which had burned down -- the name "La Fenice", the phoenix, refers to the opera company rising again from that fire. It opened with Giovanni Paisiello's I giochi d'Agrigento, to a libretto by Alessandro Pepoli.

In December 1836 the theatre burned a second time and was rebuilt to a design by the Meduna brothers. It was on this stage that Giuseppe Verdi premiered Ernani, Rigoletto, and La traviata. Much later, Stravinsky and Britten both wrote works performed here for the First International Festival of Contemporary Music.

In 1996 La Fenice burned for a third time, in a fire established as arson -- two electricians were convicted of setting it to avoid penalties for running behind on rewiring work. Reconstruction took until 2003 and followed the architect Aldo Rossi's principle of com'era, dov'era: as it was, where it was. With few usable drawings of the lost interior, the rebuild drew in part on stills from Visconti's 1954 film Senso, which had been shot inside the auditorium.

The theatre today

La Fenice returned to full operation with the 2003 reopening and runs a year-round programme of opera, ballet, and concerts, alongside daytime visits on days when the stage is not in use.