We so often hear of Venice only when there is a disaster or a negative news story. We understand this and our responsibility in making a better tomorrow, but we want to do so by shifting the focus onto all that is good in Venice. It is why the fundamental driving force of our project has become regeneration, impact and sustainability.

Therein, we have a unique opportunity for the Teatro San Cassiano to reimagine the meaning of “public opera” in the 21st century, and to do so in Venice. After all, if we are celebrating Venice as the birthplace of public opera in the seventeenth century, why not go further and allow it to set a new standard for public opera in our own time?

Here, then, are some of our wider aims and objectives:

• Having rebuilt the theatre, our aim will then be to preserve for the benefit of the people of Venice, Italy and the world, the musicological, historical, and architectural heritage of one of Venice’s greatest achievements and contributions to world culture.
• Our goal will be to join with Venice in celebrating its history in a form that is relevant to the world today, by expanding its music industry and by increasing investment and employment opportunities within the city.
• Our plan is to build upon the theatre’s heritage as the first ‘public’ opera house to re-interpret in a modern context how the theatre can reach out to its modern-day public in new and imaginative ways.
• We are passionate about creating a legacy for future generations of Venetians through our museum and school outreach projects, bringing children into the theatre and into close interactive contact with all aspects of opera performance and production.
• We also want to go further by promoting, maintaining and advancing public awareness of the benefits of music therapy by initiating a programme of Outreach services—related where possible to opera—that reaches out to Venice and allows opera to play an intrinsic role in the well-being of its local community.
• We will deliver the project using an independent hybrid charitable/commercial model that seeks to pursue charitable objectives for the greater good, but finances its activities through commercial enterprise rather than public funding.

In conclusion, Venice has to be more than its glorious past.

This is about creating a new opportunity in Venice built on its tradition of unparalleled music innovation by calling on its extraordinary capacity to create the unimaginable and to fashion a genre for the world to imitate.

Together, we can make this happen.

credit: watercolour by Jon Greenfield