Teatro di San Carlo

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy, was originally called the Real Teatro di San Carlo by the Bourbon monarchy, but is now simply known as the Teatro di San Carlo. It is connected to the Royal Palace and sits next to the Piazza del Plebiscito. As the oldest opera house in the world still in continuous use, it opened in 1737, decades before Milan’s La Scala or Venice’s La Fenice.

Its opera season runs from late November to July, and its ballet season from December to early June. The theatre once held 3,285 people, but now seats 1,386. Because of its size, structure, and age, it served as a model for later European theatres.

History of the opera house

King Charles VII of Naples, a Bourbon, commissioned the San Carlo to replace the old, run-down Teatro San Bartolomeo, which had been too small since the composer Scarlatti moved to Naples in 1682 and helped turn the city into an important opera center. The new theatre opened on 4 November 1737, the king’s name day, with Domenico Sarro’s opera Achille in Sciro, based on a 1736 libretto by Metastasio. As was the custom, a woman, Vittoria Tesi, played Achilles; the cast also included soprano Anna Peruzzi and tenor Angelo Amorevoli.

Sarro conducted the orchestra and two ballet intermezzi created by Gaetano Grossatesta, with sets by Pietro Righini. Early seasons favored dance and featured famous castrati. Later in the 18th century, Christoph Willibald Gluck was brought in to direct his 1752 Clemenza di Tito, and Johann Christian Bach presented two operas there in 1761–62.

1737: Construction of the Teatro di San Carlo (San Carlo Theater)

The theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio de Medrano, a Sicilian nobleman and royal architect, with Angelo Carasale, former director of the San Bartolomeo, handling the elaborate furnishings. Its horseshoe-shaped auditorium is the oldest in the world, built for 75,000 ducats. The hall measured 28.6 meters long and 22.5 meters wide, with 184 boxes in six tiers (including proscenium boxes), plus a royal box for ten people, totaling 1,379 seats. With standing room, it could hold over 3,000.

Composer and violinist Louis Spohr reviewed the house on 15 February 1817, finding it excellent for ballet and pantomime but too large for opera, noting that only the strongest voices could be heard clearly. The theatre was admired for its architecture, gold decorations, and blue upholstery (blue and gold being Bourbon colors), and was then the largest opera house in the world. The 184 boxes had no curtains, so no one could escape the king’s view; the monarch had private access from the Royal Palace. Domenico Barbaia managed the royal opera houses from 1809 to 1841, gaining a reputation for innovative productions.

February 1816 to January 1817: Destruction by fire and rebuilding

On 13 February 1816, a fire during a ballet dress rehearsal destroyed part of the building. King Ferdinand IV ordered its reconstruction, and Barbaia, working with architect Antonio Niccolini, rebuilt it in ten months. The new horseshoe-shaped auditorium had 1,444 seats, a proscenium 33.5 meters wide and 30 meters high, and a stage 34.5 meters deep. Niccolini added a bas-relief inside depicting “Time and the Hour,” and the central ceiling fresco, showing Apollo presenting the world’s greatest poets to Minerva, was painted by Antonio, Giuseppe, and Giovanni Cammarano.

The rebuilt theatre opened on 12 January 1817 with Johann Simon Mayr’s Il sogno di Partenope. Stendhal, who attended the second night, wrote that nothing in Europe compared to it. In 1844, the interior was redecorated by Niccolini, his son Fausto, and Francesco Maria dei Giudice, changing the color scheme to the now-traditional red and gold. Later renovations included the orchestra pit, suggested by Verdi in 1872.