di Veronaround ®

The Verona Arena is internationally known for its summer opera festival, but not everyone knows that the real home of the Opera is the Philharmonic Theatre, which stands on the opposite side of the same square.

 

It is one of the most classic Italian theatres, begun in 1604 by the architect Curtoni, but interrupted for more than a century due to the plague and other adversities. The project was resumed at the beginning of the eighteenth century on the initiative of the noble Scipione Maffei, with the task entrusted to the famous Francesco Galli Bibiena. It was inaugurated in 1732 with the staging of "La Fida Ninfa", an Arcadian opera set to music by Vivaldi with a libretto by Maffei himself. ​

 

Unfortunately, the Theater suffered a disastrous fire in 1749 and a devastating bombing in 1945, but each time it was rebuilt identical to the original. ​

 

The same architectural complex includes the Sala Maffeiana (originally from 1600), the majestic classical pronaos which acts as an access, and the courtyard of the Maffeiano Museum, today a large classical epigraphic collection, one of the oldest public museums in the western world.