Venice needed a new opera house after losing its leading theater to fire in 1774, and the replacement, opened in 1792, took the name La Fenice, the Phoenix, for its promise to rise again from any future disaster.
It has had to keep that promise twice more: a second fire in 1836 saw the house rebuilt within a year, and a catastrophic arson fire in 1996 left only the exterior walls standing, with reconstruction, closely following the historic gilt-and-stucco design, finally reopening the theater in November 2004. In between disasters, La Fenice built a genuine claim to musical history, hosting premieres of Rossini's Tancredi, Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Verdi's Rigoletto and La Traviata, and drawing conductors from Toscanini to Karajan and Bernstein onto its podium. Visitors can walk the horseshoe of boxes on a self-guided daytime tour, which also includes a permanent exhibition on Maria Callas's years performing here.
