Petruzzelli: Bari’s stage history

A theatre “of all and for all”

The Petruzzelli Foundation recounts that in the second half of the nineteenth century Bari already had a municipal theatre, the Piccinni, opened in 1854. Its limited capacity, about a thousand seats, and prices considered too high fuelled discontent among citizens, who began asking for a theatre “of all and for all”.

This demand was strengthened by the success of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, which he had composed in Cerignola, where he lived for many years. Bari eagerly awaited the opera, but the Piccinni was not suited to staging it: the need for a larger hall became impossible to ignore.

The city council had already addressed the issue with two resolutions in 1877, offering a prize and free land to any company willing to build a new theatre. It is a beginning worth remembering during a visit: the Petruzzelli was born from a collective demand before an architectural project, which is also why the city has always considered it a symbol of its own.

Sources: Fondazione Petruzzelli — Il teatro

The Petruzzelli brothers and the building

The call was answered by the brothers Onofrio and Antonio Petruzzelli, merchants and shipowners of Triestine origin, with a design by their brother-in-law, the Bari engineer Angelo Cicciomessere, who later took the surname Messeni by royal decree. The project was approved in 1895 and revised in 1898, but the start of works kept being delayed.

According to the Foundation, the turning point came after popular unrest caused by a rise in the flour duty: to give work to many people and ease social tensions, the city authorities launched a public works programme. Construction began on 23 May 1898 and the theatre opened on 14 February 1903 with Giacomo Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots.

The Petruzzelli stood out for its extraordinary capacity, originally 2,192 seats and now 1,482, reduced over time to meet safety rules, and for the variety of its programming. Italia.it describes it as Italy’s fourth-largest theatre, also known for its hospitality and its interior decoration in pure gold.

Sources: Fondazione Petruzzelli — Il teatro · Italia.it — Teatro Petruzzelli

The great seasons of the twentieth century

The Petruzzelli stage, the Foundation recalls, hosted the great classics of opera, above all Verdi and Puccini, but also rarities such as Marchetti’s grand opera Ruy Blas, Auber’s Fra Diavolo, Gomes’s opera-ballet Il Guarany and Marenco’s Ballo Excelsior. Among the artists the source names tenors Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, Mario Del Monaco and Alfredo Kraus, soprano Renata Tebaldi and baritone Renato Bruson.

During the war, when Bari became an Allied base, the theatre was used as a place of entertainment for troops, an atmosphere told in the film Polvere di stelle. In 1973 it was recognised as a Teatro di tradizione; in the following years Luca Ronconi staged Piccinni’s Iphigénie en Tauride there and Pier Luigi Pizzi Bellini’s I Puritani in the version written for Maria Malibran.

From 1981 the Petruzzelli welcomed major ballet companies, such as those of Maurice Béjart and Roland Petit, and singers including Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Katia Ricciarelli and Raina Kabaivanska.

Sources: Fondazione Petruzzelli — Il teatro

The 1991 fire and the rebirth

The Foundation recounts that the lights had just gone down on a Bellini Norma when, on the night of 27 October 1991, a fire destroyed the theatre. It was a very hard blow to the city’s artistic life and left citizens in dismay at an event no one had imagined.

On 6 December 2009, with the official end of the works, the Petruzzelli was handed back to Bari and Puglia completely rebuilt: according to the source, the same as it was in its fundamental spaces, but equipped with state-of-the-art safety and technology. Italia.it notes that since then the theatre has fully resumed its activity, with opera and ballet seasons, concerts and classical music shows designed for families too.

For visitors today, knowing that the hall is a faithful reconstruction adds a layer of meaning. The decorations and proportions you see are the result of long collective work to return a lost place to the city, and it is precisely this continuity that makes it so dear to the people of Bari.

Sources: Fondazione Petruzzelli — Il teatro · Italia.it — Teatro Petruzzelli

The Petruzzelli in the mile of theatres

The Ministry’s general heritage catalogue places the Petruzzelli in a broader context. In the 1920s Bari enjoyed great cultural ferment, shown by many theatres concentrated in about a kilometre and a half of the centre: a true mile of theatres, four of which are still open to the public.

The oldest is the Piccinni, on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, opened in 1854. In the Umbertine quarter, on Corso Cavour, stands the Petruzzelli, which the entry calls a symbol of the new town. Facing the sea, at the edge of the medieval town, is the Art Nouveau Teatro Margherita, built between 1912 and 1914 on piles and now an exhibition space for contemporary art. The Kursaal Santalucia, from 1927, was restored and reopened in 2021.

A walk linking them lets you read Bari’s growth between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from the old town to the Murattian grid. For those who prefer architecture to performance, it is a thread connecting the Petruzzelli to the other ways the city has shaped its leisure.

Sources: Ministero della Cultura, Catalogo generale dei beni culturali — Teatri del primo Novecento a Bari

Visiting the hall, even without a performance

The Foundation runs guided tours covering the foyer and the stalls, lasting about half an hour; when foreign visitors are present the tour is held in Italian and English. The same page warns that the Petruzzelli is a working opera house, so tours may change: it is always wise to check before going.

The plans published by the Foundation in its technical section distinguish stalls, upper tiers and fly gallery: the theatre includes both the audience’s space and the stage machinery that visitors usually do not see. Looking at them before the visit helps understand how the spaces overlap.

The theatre also pays special attention to young people. The educational section describes the Petruzzelli dei ragazzi, with dress rehearsals open to schools, matinées with famous arias, an opera written for young audiences, Family Concerts and tours for school groups. For a travelling family, a family concert may be the simplest way to enter the hall and experience it doing what it was built for.

Sources: Fondazione Petruzzelli — Visite guidate · Fondazione Petruzzelli — Capitolato tecnico e documenti tecnici · Fondazione Petruzzelli — Educational

From the entrance to the hall

To get to know a theatre, follow the audience’s path before looking at the stage. Entrance, foyer and hall mark an approach: people meet, the pace changes, you find your seat. Once seated, attention can shift from decorative detail to the relationship between spectator and stage.

It is a way of reading architecture through a concrete gesture. The plans help compare the position of the stalls with the upper tiers; the question is not only where you see best, but how the experience changes with the viewpoint, and how a hall designed for over two thousand people organised the city’s social life.

Those who know the story of the fire can add another question: what does it mean to enter a place rebuilt as it was? There is no single answer, but looking with this awareness enriches the visit. Children can join in too, looking for repeated elements, dominant colours and the points from which the stage seems nearer or farther.

A Bari day with a change of pace

For an evening we would start from what you want to hear: a voice, an orchestra, a sung story or a form of dance. Then match it with the actual programme of the period. A short listen before departure can make the evening clearer; a pause afterwards leaves room to discuss sound, staging and rhythm. It is different from going in only to photograph the hall: the architecture matters, but it is also understood through what happens in front of the audience.

Picture a city walk and an evening performance as two separate moments. By day observe streets, façades and places of collective life, from the old town to Corso Cavour; in the evening enter a focused experience. Place lunch or dinner so as to leave room for that shift, without squeezing every stop.

For this theme the artistic calendar matters more than a generic tourist season: the reason to come may be a specific title. If you prefer architecture, the thread can link the Petruzzelli to Teatro Margherita and the seafront, ending the day by the sea.