/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000062b438 rename

The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele is an opera house and opera company located on the Piazza...

The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele is an opera house and opera company located on the Piazza Verdi in Palermo, Sicily. It was dedicated to King Victor Emanuel II. It is the biggest in Italy and one of the largest of Europe (the third after the Opéra National de Paris and Staatsoper in Vienna), renowned for its perfect acoustics. An international competition for the creation of the opera house was announced by the Palermo Council in 1864, primarily at the instigation of the mayor, Antonio Starrabba di Rudinì. For many years there had been talk of building a big new theatre in Palermo, worthy of the second biggest city in southern Italy (after Naples) and designed to promote the image of the city following the recent national unity. The opera house was built by the architect Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile and, following his death in 1891, construction was overseen by his son, Ernesto. Construction started on 12 January 1874 but was stopped for eight years from 1882 till 1890. Finally, on 16 May 1897, twenty-two years after the laying of the foundation stone, the second largest opera theatre after Palais Garnier in Paris was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi's Falstaff