Teatro Massimo

The largest opera house in Italy, begun in 1874 to Giovan Battista Filippo Basile's design and finished by his son Ernesto after his death, with construction halted for eight of the twenty-three years between. It opened on 16 May 1897 with Verdi's Falstaff, and the second version of La rondine was first given here in 1920. Closed in 1974 for renovation, it stayed shut for twenty-three years and reopened on 12 May 1997, four days short of its centenary.