In 1774, the San Benedetto Theatre, which had been Venice's leading opera house for more than forty years, burned to the ground. No sooner had it been rebuilt than a legal dispute broke out between the company managing it and the owners, the Venier family. The issue was decided in favor of the Veniers. As a result, the theatre company decided to build a new opera house of its own on the Campo San Fantin. The construction began in June 1790, and by May 1792 the theatre was completed. It was named "La Fenice", in reference to the company's survival, first of the fire, then of the loss of its former quarters. La Fenice was inaugurated on May 16, 1792 with an opera by Giovanni Paisiello entitled I Giochi di Agrigento. From the beginning of the 19th century, La Fenice acquired a European reputation. Rossini mounted two major productions in the theatre and Bellini had two operas premiered there. Donizetti, fresh from his triumphs in Milan and Naples, returned to Venice in 1836, after an absence of seventeen years.

In December 1836, disaster struck again when the theatre was destroyed by fire. However, it was quickly rebuilt with a design provided by the architect-engineer team of the brothers, Tommaso Meduna and Giambattista Meduna ^[1] La Fenice once again rose from its ashes to open its doors on the evening of December 26, 1837. Giuseppe Verdi's association with La Fenice began in 1844, with a performance of Ernani during the Carnival season. Over the next thirteen years, the premieres of Attila, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Simon Boccanegra took place there. During the First World War, La Fenice was closed, but reopened to again become the scene of much activity, attracting many of the world's greatest singers and conductors. In 1930, the Venice Biennale initiated the First International Festival of Contemporary Music, which brought such composers as Stravinsky and Britten, and more recently Berio, Nono and Bussotti, to write for La Fenice. On 29 January 1996, it was completely destroyed by fire. Arson was immediately suspected. In March 2001, a court in Venice found two electricians guilty of setting the fire. Enrico Carella and his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti, appeared to have set the building ablaze because their company was facing heavy fines over delays in repair work. Carella, the company's owner, was sent to prison for seven years, while Marchetti a six-year sentence.

After various delays, reconstruction began in earnest in 2001. In 650 days, a team of two hundred plasterers, artists, woodworkers, and other craftsman succeeded in recreating the ambience of the old theatre at a cost of some €90 million. La Fenice was rebuilt in 19th-century style on the basis of a design by architect Aldo Rossi. It reopened on 14 December 2003 with an inaugural concert of Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky. The first opera production was La Traviata in November, 2004. Critical response to the rebuilt La Fenice was mixed. The music critic of the rightwing paper Il Tempo, Enrico Cavalotti, was satisfied. He found the colours a bit bright but the sound good and compact. For his colleague Dino Villatico of the leftwing La Repubblica, however, the acoustics of the new hall lacked resonance and the colours were painfully bright. He found it "kitsch, a fake imitation of the past". He said that "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it". However, for many Venetians, a painful wound in the historical, much-admired cityscape has been healed.

SEASON 2007 -2008

December

December 9^th – 11^th – 12^th – 13^th – 14^th – 15^th – 16^th and 18^th

La Turandot by Giacomo Puccini

Director: Zhang Jiemin

January

January 7th -23rd

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
6th Concert

January 26^th – 27^th – 29^th – 30^th and 31^st

La Rondine by Giacomo Puccini

January 28^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
8th Concert

February

February 28^th

opera - Teatro La Fenice
ELEKTRA, by Richard Strauss

March

March 2^nd – 5^th – 8^th and 11^th

ELEKTRA, by Richard Strauss

March 3^rd

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
9th Concert

March 7^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice / Teatro Toniolo
L.van BEETHOVEN
symphonic season
Direttore: Eliahu Inbal

March 15^th and 16^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
L.van BEETHOVEN
symphonic season
Direttore: Yuri Temirkanov

March 21^st and 22^nd

concert - Teatro La Fenice
SOSTAKOVIC e CAJKOWSKIJ
symphonic season
Direttore: Yuri Temirkanov

March 28^th – 29^th and 30^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
M MUSORGSKIJ e D SOSTAKOVIC
symphonic season
Direttore: Andrey Boreyko

March 31^st

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
10th Concert

April

April 4^th – 5^th and 6^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
L.van BEETHOVEN e L. NONO
symphonic season
Direttore: Eliahu Inbal

April 14^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
11th Concert

April 18th (7:00 pm,) 19th, 20th (3:30 pm,) 22nd, 23rd, 24th (7:00 pm,) 26th, 27th (3:30 pm)

opera - Teatro La Fenice
IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA , by G. Rossini

April 21^st

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
12th Concert

May

May 3rd (8:00 pm,) 4th (5:00 pm)

concert - Teatro La Fenice
R. STRAUSS - R. WAGNER
Director: Jeffrey Tate
symphonic season

May 12^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
13th Concert

May 16^th and 17^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
F. MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY
Director Kurt Masur
symphonic season

May 19^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
14th Concert

May 23rd (7:00 pm,) 24th, 25th (3:30 pm,) 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th (7:00 pm,) 31st (3:30 pm)

opera - Teatro La Fenice
TOSCA, by G. Puccini

May 26^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
STAGIONE DI MUSICA DA CAMERA (CHAMBER MUSIC SEASON)
15th Concert

June

June 20th (7:00 pm,) 22nd (3:30 pm,) 25th, 27th (7:00 pm,) 29th (3:30 pm)

opera - Teatro La Fenice
DEATH IN VENICE (Morte a Venezia), by B. Britten

July

July 4th, 5th (8:00 pm)

concert - Teatro La Fenice
J.S.BACH, L. van BEETHOVEN e J.BRAHMS
symphonic season
Direttore: James Conlon

July 11^th and 12^th

concert - Teatro La Fenice
G. MAHLER
symphonic season
Direttore: Eliahu Inbal

September

Semptember 14th, 16th, 18th (7:00 pm,) 20th (3:30 pm,) 23rd (5:00 pm)

opera - Teatro La Fenice
BORIS GODUNOV, by M. Musorgskij

October

October 19th, 21st, 22nd, 24th (7:00 pm,) 25th, 26th (3:30 pm,) 28th (5:00 pm,) 29th (7:00 pm)

opera - Teatro La Fenice
NABUCCO, by G. Verdi

November

November 5th, 6th, 7th (7:00 pm,) 8th, 9th (3:30 pm)

ballet - Teatro La Fenice
SWAN LAKE , by Cajkovskij

December

December 12th (7:00 pm,) 14th (3:30 pm,) 16th, 18th (7:00 pm,) 20th (3:30 pm)

opera - Teatro La Fenice
VON HEUTE AUF MORGEN by A. Schoenberg
PAGLIACCI by R. Leoncavallo

To receive additional information on La Fenice Theater or to book tickets for any of the events indicated above please contact our concierge: Valentina