It seeks to restore “historically-informed” Baroque opera to Venice by rebuilding the original Teatro San Cassiano: the world’s first public opera house.

In 1637, the Teatro San Cassiano gave public opera to the world. This momentous act sparked a global opera boom which set Venice as its capital and established the Teatro San Cassiano forevermore as the world’s first public opera house, the birthplace of modern-day opera.

Today, there is no monument, no celebration, no theatre. Indeed, in all of Italy, no such theatre survives.

The project will:

1. reconstruct the original Teatro San Cassiano of 1637 as faithfully as modern scholarship and traditional craftsmanship will allow in order to deliver a fully functioning, dedicated and historically-informed Baroque opera house, complete with its own fully operational Baroque stage machinery, moving scene-sets, dei ex machina, special effects, and unique acoustic environment.
2. restore Historically Informed Performances (“HIP”) of Baroque opera to Venice.
3. establish the Teatro San Cassiano as a world-renowned centre for the research, exploration and staging of “HIP”, literally studying and celebrating Baroque opera through its recital on stage and in the orchestra pit.
4. realise the Teatro San Cassiano’s unique historical value to deliver a commercially viable, self-sustaining independent company with significant long-term growth opportunities.
5. deliver regeneration, impact and sustainability. This is as much about the future as it is the past. By putting Venice and Venetians at the centre of this project, the theatre will offer Venice a sympathetic contribution to a commercially secure and environmentally sustainable future. Both in build and in operation, the Teatro San Cassiano will create new jobs, new businesses, new opportunities, and all driven out of an ethos for a sustainable regeneration of Venice. Its outreach programme will reimagine the meaning of “public opera” in the 21st century.

The reconstructed theatre and Historically informed performance (“HIP”)

Opera has always been about spectacle. From 1637 onwards, the first Venetian theatres not only offered the greatest music performed by the best singers, musicians and dancers of the day, they also used the latest technology available of stage machinery, scene-sets and special effects of the time to set the operas in a magical world of descending dei ex machina, rolling seas, thunder storms, twinkling stars and scene-sets which changed in the blink of an eye. It was like nothing ever seen or heard before, and sadly since.

The Teatro San Cassiano will be unlike any theatre in the world. Entering a box will be like walking through a time-machine. Once inside, we will find a Venetian Baroque theatre of 153 boxes over five tiers and with a platea just six rows deep. With a capacity of just 405 spectators, the theatre will be intense, immediate, and intimate. It will introduce its guests to a world of “HIP”, where each opera will have been meticulously researched, now to be performed as its composer would recognise it, complete with period staging, gestures and costumes. It will celebrate the world’s greatest composers, but also restore those currently forgotten. The intimacy, the intensity, the sheer magic of these performances will deliver an undeniable artistic, cultural and commercial force that cannot be experienced today. This will be opera rediscovered in its original setting. This will be Venice at its exhilarating best.

Together we can make this happen!

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