Teatro Comunale Dante Alighieri

About

The Teatro Comunale Alighieri is an opera house located at 2 Via Mariani in Ravenna, Italy and designed by the Venetian architects, Tommaso Meduna and his brother, Giambattista who had designed the second La Fenice theatre after the fire of 1836. The new Teatro Comunale Alighieri was inaugurated on 15 May 1852 with a production of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable, followed by Giovanni Pacini's Medea. It presently offers a program of up to six operas during the season which runs from November to April.

For about 125 years following 1723, Ravenna had one main theatre for the presentation of opera, the Teatro Comunitativo located outside the centre of the city. It featured a lavishly decorated, U-shaped baroque auditorium with 97 boxes on four tiers. In the 50 years following 1802, it presented 170 operatic productions, 24 of which were by Rossini, 22 by Donizetti, and 10 by Verdi.

However, the 1830s and 1840s revealed its inadequacy, and plans were made to build a new theatre in the heart of the city; the cornerstone of the replacement theatre was laid in 1840. With construction continuing until 1852, the new Teatro Comunale was named for the famous poet, Dante Aligheri, who had been...