The new florence opera house

FLORENCE: On 21 December 2011 the New Florence Opera House opened with an extraordinary concert by Zubin Mehta. It was a fundamental moment in the history of not only the city, but also of the nation.

The great new opera house designed by the architect Paolo Desideri was undertaken by the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri with funds made available for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy and with contributions from the Regione Toscana and the city of Florence.

From 21 to 31 December the New Florence Opera House will open with a series of great concerts that will bring to town some of the world’s most celebrated conductors and soloists together with the artists of the Maggio: Zubin Mehta, Stefano Bollani, Claudio Abbado, András Schiff, Fabio Luisi, Rudolf Buchbinder, Leonidas Kavakos, Patrizia Ciofi, Fabio Sartori…

The inaugural events will conclude on New Year’s Eve with a sparkling festival starting with a concert of Italian operatic repertory with Mehta conducting

. This will be the beginning of a new tradition that will come a few hours before the musical salutes to the new year organized by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Musikverein in Vienna.
The concert programs, which will be announced soon, will be enriched by a dense series of other events in which everyone will be able to discover one of the most fascinating places in Florence of the third millennium. Don’t miss this historic event!

What will it be like? 
The New Florence Opera House will be the most avant-garde in Europe with 3 halls that can function simultaneously. The capacity of the Great Hall will be 1,800, that of the Auditorium 1,000 and that of the open Amphitheatre on the roof, with its breathtaking view of the city, 2,000.

The Great Hall will have a fascinating configuration and will be extremely comfortable. Zubin Mehta, who from the beginning has followed the design and the progress of the work, asked the architects to make sure that there are as few barriers and little distance between the public and the stage

. The boxes, for example, have been conceived inside an architectural wave without the traditional railing. From every point in the Great Hall the stage will seem close and the visibility will be excellent
. The acoustics, which have been superintended by the German team Müller-BBM, will be of an extraordinary quality.

Thanks to the new stage’s modern technologies, it will be possible to put on more productions. They will increase 40% with regard to the 2011 program. There will be more programs for adults and children: operas, ballets, concerts, different genres, and a lot of contemporary music in Italian and world premiere. The theatre will represent a further confirmation of the great excellence and artistic quality of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and its value
.

A true strategic point for the city 
The New Florence Opera House, with its great spaces, will be open even when there is nothing on
. It will be accessible even during the day, where the bookshop and café will be always open. On the grounds families can take walks, go jogging, come with friends and dogs, wander among the fountains, the waterworks, and the open-air museum that was conceived by Dante Ferretti, the Oscar winner, with vitrines throughout the park and the front piazza.

The piazza is the largest in Florence and one of the largest in Italy, and it will give an immediate identity to the space as a “factory” for spectacle and music.

The New Florence Opera House will become a reference point for Florentines and tourists, open to classical music but also pop, to theatrical productions, the cinema, meetings and conferences. It will also a laboratory for the young and in use 12 months of the year. An extremely easy space to use, it can be easily reach by public transportation, and it has plenty of parking space.

A meeting place between art and man 
This is a true rebirth of the “theatre” as a building that is a fundamental meeting place in the life of city and its inhabitants. This has been true of other similar spaces that have recently opened: the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, the Operahuset in Oslo and the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman. Considering the conception of the spaces and their use, the New Florence Opera House will take on all those functions of the theatre as it was envisioned by the ancient Greeks as the principal and most used locale in the city for entertainment, education, art, music and drama.

Credits

Presidenza del Consiglio di Ministri
Executive Officer Dr. Elisabetta Fabbri (Architect)
Project Manager Dr. Giacomo Parenti (Engineer)
Director of Works Dr. Giorgio Caselli (Architect)
Contractors A.T. I : S.A.C Spa e I.G.I.T Spa
Project Coordinator Dr. Angelo Reale (Engineer)
Executor Co-ordinator of the project and its operative phases Dr. Angela Ranieri (Engineer)

Design
Architects Studio A.B.D.R – Roma
Structural Design Italingegneria – Roma
Systems Design Enetec – Roma

Consultants
Acoustics Müller – BBM Monaco
Stagecraft Biobyte

Please read our correspondent Fabio Bardellis reviews about Claudio Abbados concert December 23th at: http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2011/12/abbado-with-brahms-and-mahler-in-florence