The Teatro Comunale Francesco Cilea in Reggio Calabria, named after the Calabrian composer born in Palmi, stands opposite Palazzo San Giorgio and, with its fifteen hundred seats, is the largest theatre in Calabria.
What to see
The city had already had other theatres, all swept away by the devastating earthquake of 1908: the Real Teatro Borbonio, opened in the early 19th century, and a summer wooden pavilion in operation from the end of the same century. The new theatre, championed by the mayor of the reconstruction Giuseppe Valentino and by minister Giuseppe de Nava to a design by the engineers Domenico De Simone and Laviny, with a façade in classical lines inspired by ancient Magna Graecia, was inaugurated in 1931 with a neoclassical interior hall.
Renovated after the Second World War with a new horseshoe-shaped modernist auditorium featuring three tiers of boxes and a gallery, the building was reopened by mayor Domenico Mannino on 25 February 1964 with Giuseppe Verdi's Il Trovatore. Declared partly unsafe in 1985 for fire-code compliance work, the theatre remained active at reduced capacity until 1996, when restoration works began that, after nearly two decades, returned the theatre to the city; the first floor today also houses the Civic Picture Gallery of Reggio Calabria.
Visiting
The theatre can be visited for performances on the programme, with schedule and tickets available on the official website.
Our editors' tip
If you attend a show, arrive a few minutes early to admire the royal box at the centre of the stalls: it is one of the few Italian theatres to preserve this 19th-century arrangement intact in a hall rebuilt in the 20th century.
