Teatro di San Carlo

You’re standing before the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples’ premier theatre—famous worldwide and one of the oldest opera houses in Europe, built some forty years before Milan’s La Scala. The vision for a grand opera house came from the first Bourbon king, Charles III. On November 4, 1737, the splendid auditorium—truly magnificent, with six tiers of boxes curving gracefully around the stage in a horseshoe shape—opened with Domenico Sarro’s Achille in Sciro. From then on, the San Carlo welcomed the greatest composers and countless ballets. In 1799, during Naples’ Revolution, French troops seized the city from Ferdinand IV, who fled on a British ship. For five intense months, the theatre became the National Theatre, its stage filled with ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality, with patriotic hymns ringing out to cheers. In 1816, a fire destroyed much of the building in under an hour, but it was rebuilt in just nine months. At its reopening, the French writer Stendhal wrote: “The first impression is that you’ve been transported into the palace of an Oriental emperor. My eyes are dazzled, my soul enraptured… There is nothing in Europe, I will not say to compare, but even to give the faintest idea of this theatre.” If that sounds exaggerated, see for yourself—the Teatro di San Carlo offers affordable guided tours of the main auditorium, the royal box, and the foyer. And for the full experience, there’s nothing like attending a performance in this historic setting.