Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Opera company and festival venue in Florence, Italy
The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino stands by the Parco delle Cascine on Piazza Vittorio Gui, designed by the Rome studio ABDR Architetti Associati. Its pale, flat facade has a recessed base behind thin vertical supports and a broad grey staircase rising along the left side to a wide paved plaza. Inside are the 1,890-seat Sala Grande, the 1,200-seat Sala Zubin Mehta and a 2,000-seat open-air cavea.
The current opera house opened on 21 December 2011 with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Zubin Mehta, funded partly by Italy's 150th unification anniversary funds. A gala on 10 May 2014, attended by President Giorgio Napolitano, marked its full opening; the first complete opera season began on 25 September 2014 with Wolf-Ferrari's Il campiello. The nearby Teatro Comunale, which it replaced, closed in 2014 and was demolished in 2021.
The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, held each spring, is based here and gives its name to the theatre. The house opened on 10 May 2014 with a gala under Zubin Mehta, attended by President Giorgio Napolitano. The first full opera season began on 25 September 2014 with Wolf-Ferrari's Il campiello. The auditorium named after Mehta, opened on 21 December 2021, holds chandeliers and glass polyhedra by Venini designed by Carlo Scarpa, moved from the demolished Teatro Comunale.
The opera house stands on Piazza Vittorio Gui by the Parco delle Cascine, not in the city center, next to Firenze Porta al Prato station and served by bus and tram. The broad staircase with grey steps and side walls rises along the left side of the pale facade to the entrances above the recessed base.
The auditorium added in 2021 is named after Zubin Mehta and holds about 1,200 seats, reducible to 500 for chamber music. Inside it were reinstalled furnishings from the demolished Teatro Comunale, including Venini glass chandeliers designed by Carlo Scarpa and seven reliefs by Bruno Innocenti.
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