Venice's famed opera theater reopens
As the flames soared up into the night sky illuminating the heart of Venice and slowly devouring one of the most beautiful opera houses in the world, all then mayor Massimo Cacciari could do was look on as tears reportedly streamed down his face. It was January 29, 1996. The city’s central fire brigade had been called to Campo San Fantin and arrived less than three minutes after 9pm to see flames shooting out from one of La Fenice’s upstairs windows. Things happened very fast after that. By 9.10pm, the whole top floor was a fireball, by 9.20pm the ornately gilded multi-tiered auditorium crashed in and the stage collapsed sending flames leaping metres high and embers flying in all directions. The city’s fire brigade soon realised that they had no choice but to let the opera house burn down to a shell. “It was either save La Fenice or save Venice” said the the head of the fire department, Commandante Alfio Pini, later in an interview. The firemen reluctantly turned their hoses on to the adjacent buildings while the opera house continued to burn ferociously for nine interminable hours.
Today the facade of Venice’s majestic opera house is once again gleaming white. Like the phoenix, the mythical bird that is its namesake, it has risen for the third time from its ashes. After controversies, delays, construction company bankruptcies and new contracts the reconstructed theater was officially unveiled to the world on December 14, 2003, with Italy's president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in attendance. The program of the momentous event was meant underscore the theater's strong connection with the city. It included Symphony of Psalms by Igor Stravinsky, the Russian-born composer who is buried in the cemetery on the nearby island of San Michele, and a Te Deum by Venetian composer Antonio Caldara. During the next few months the refurbished theater will be fine-tuning its acoustics, to resume its opera repertory next November with La Traviata, under the baton of American conductor Lorin Maazel.
Ingeniously wedged into a tiny space surrounded by canals just west of St Mark's Square, La Fenice seats an audience of 1,000 (814 before the fire). The theater is relatively small compared with that of Covent Garden or La Scala, which accommodates 2,000. Its rococo decorations and five levels of blue-and-gold boxes in curving tiers radiate an enviable sense of warmth, and its all-wooden interior has ensured its acoustic qualities, unrivalled in opera and admired by great singers, among them Maria Callas, and great opera composers ever eager to premiere their works in Venice. La Fenice has seen the opening nights of Verdi's then scandalous La Traviata (and of his Rigoletto, Ernani, Attila and Simon Boccanegra), Rossini’s Tancredi and Bellini's I Capuleti e I Montecchi. In the 20th century it saw the first performances of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Prokofiev's Fiery Angel and Britten's The Turn of the Screw.
As Riccardo Muti lifted his baton for the first notes of the theater’s inauguration concert, one could almost forget the fire had ever happened. Yet the past eight years had resembled a particularly dramatic libretto with a never-ending plot and a new twist at every turn. After an inquiry that lasted five years and at one point seemed to favor a mafia-related trail, two electricians were finally sentenced in 2001 to six and seven years in prison for setting fire to the building. Faced with the prospect of having to pay a penalty for delays in completion of the rewiring work they were doing, they had implausibly decided to sprinke gasoline around the opera house and set it afire. They later claimed they had only intended to cause a small amount of damage so that their failure to meet the deadline would not be discovered. But a combination of unlucky circumstances and rampant disregard for safety and fire regulations by the theater’s management and those carrying out the renovation works conspired to turn the fire into the worst blaze the city’s boat-borne fire brigade had ever fought. People were astounded and dismayed to read in newspaper reports that on the night of the fire only one custodian was on duty; the existing fire alarm system (which still functioned) had been turned off; the firemen's boats could not get direct access to the building because the adjacent canal was dry, having been drained for dredging for the first time in forty years. This also eliminated the nearest supply of canal water desperately needed to put out the flames.
The next day the mayor, Massimo Cacciari, defiantly declared that the theater would be rebuilt immediately, using the rallying cry “Com’era, dov’era” (As it was, where it was) that Venetians had used in 1902 when the bell tower in St. Mark's Square collapsed. Work at the site of La Fenice did not start in earnest, however, for eighteen months, and two teams of contractors hired years apart failed to make any real headway. By 2000, when current mayor Paolo Costa, a former public works minister, was appointed, the hulk of the building was still a blackened shell filled with rubble. "We realized we were failing. This affair was confirming every negative stereotype of Italy and Venice," Costa said in an interview. He promptly went to court to fire the second company, Holzmann-Romagnoli, and in 2001 hired a new Venice-based firm, Sacaim, and had himself appointed commissioner of the project.
What was managed under Costa’s administration in just over two years is nothing short of remarkable. Though the theater is not exactly com’era (a lack of detailed drawings and blueprints hampered restorers trying to duplicate La Fenice, whose last restoration dates back to the last fire and consequent rebuilding in 1837), it is as close as one can get. Some things, such as the fire alarm system, electronic stage equipment and additional rehearsal and storage spaces, are far better. In the run-up to the opening, more than four hundred artisans from all over Italy worked feverishly, recreating the Venetian-style decorations in gold and green lacquer, and the paintings and gilding.
Mauro Carosi, a set designer from Naples, was able to recreate the phalanxes of plaster and gilt cherubs that decorate the loggia boxes after studying the 1954 film Senso by Luchino Visconti, which was partly filmed in La Fenice. Veteran Venetian theatergoers brought in souvenir photos to help with details, and official Fenice photographer Graziano Arici’s photos were pored over by the project’s architects and engineers. Famed historic Venetian fabrics company Rubelli, which had made all the wall fabrics last time the theater was rebuilt, is still in business and found the patterns in the company archives. Alessandro Rubelli also recreated the pink tones of the velvet seating after locating a sample of the fabric used by his grandfather to reupholster the cushioned chairs in 1935. Last but not least, German acoustic engineers Muller-BBM, took on board the challenging task of matching La Fenice's internationally renowned sound.
The final cost of restoring La Fenice has been put at about €60 million (US$75 million), yet the difficulties of reconstructing a building neatly tucked away in the cramped centre of Venice are not to be underestimated. Erecting the site's main crane alone was a Herculean task. And due to a lack of space at the site the tons of cement injected beneath the flooring to keep La Fenice from sinking into Venice’s silty foundations had to be made on a pontoon moored in the Grand Canal and pumped to the theater through pipes fixed to the bottom of connecting canals. Echoing a collective sentiment on the night of the inauguration, mayor Paolo Costa said, “The music tells us the nightmare is over. The promise that La Fenice would be rebuilt as it was has been kept.” His words marked the beginning of a happier era for music buffs and opera lovers the world over. Appeared in Italy Italy in February 2004
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