Bologna Municipal Theater

Innovative theater in its time for its architecture, memorable for the first Wagner's Italian performances.

The Teatro Comunale of Bologna is currently (March 2024) closed to performances due to restoration work. However, we were able to visit it during a guided tour (about 40 minutes). The visit was informative. From it we learned among other things that the project was designed by the architect Antonio Galli da Bibbiena (1697-1774), a renowned third generation member of a family of architects and theater set designers, who worked for a long period of years , in Italy, Austria and Hungary. The particularly majestic Theater of Bologna was inaugurated in 1763 (therefore at the moment in which Bibbiena's fame was at its peak), and is one of the first theaters in which the plan has a "bell" shape - unlike the a simple “U” shape of the previous theaters – with the aim of improving vision from the side boxes. Another recent innovation introduced in the theater is the construction of the stages in concrete rather than wood, to better safeguard the theater from fires. The architecture of the stages therefore has massive shapes, even if refined by the architectural elements. Another peculiarity of the theater is its imposing "scenic tower" (this was built gradually between the 19th and 20th centuries), i.e. the part behind the theater stage, from which the mechanisms of the performance are operated. As well as being tall, it is very wide, wider than the theater itself. In the foyer of the theater two bas-reliefs depict the musicians Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi respectively. The representation of Wagner's operas in Bologna was remembered as particularly significant: the citizens of Bologna, aspiring to the rise of their own operatic tradition, alongside those already established in Milan, Venice, Rome and Naples, identified the innovative composer as the means to achieve this ascent. And so the first Italian performances of “Lohengrin” (1871), “Tannhäuser” (1872), “The Ghost Ship” (1877), took place here.

Innovative theater in its time for its architecture, memorable for the first Wagner's Italian performances.

The Teatro Comunale of Bologna is currently (March 2024) closed to performances due to restoration work. However, we were able to visit it during a guided tour (about 40 minutes). The visit was inform...

Highly worth visiting

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Bologna opera – choosing seats, buying tickets

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The tour was very disappointing

We booked on a Saturday morning tour. There were only 6 of us in our group which was a good size. Our guide was one of the costume makers for the Theatre which we found quite strange but we went wi...