"La Fenice" (Phoenix) is a revered Italian theater so named because it rose from the ashes of its predecessor, the Teatro San Benedetto, burnt down in 1773, and has itself twice before been destroyed by fire.

"Fenice" was inaugurated in 1792, burned in 1836, rebuilt in 1854, a victim of arson in 1996, and now rebuilt.

"Fenice" also had several significant renovations. In 1808, the Napoleonic Transformation, in 1828, the Metternich Renovation, and in 1937 the Dante Restoration.

After the article, I have included excerpts from the "Fenice" Web site, which can not do justice to the rich description of the history and architectural considerations of the building, rebuilding, and renovations of  "Fenice".
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Thanks to Bob Masullo

VENICE CELEBRATES REBIRTH OF ITS OPERA HOUSE

Daniela Petroff
Associated Press Writer
Monday, December 15, 2003

(12-15) 02:21 PST VENICE, Italy (AP) -- True to its namesake the phoenix, La Fenice has risen up from the ashes.

Seven years after it was torched by its own workmen and burned down, La Fenice opened its gilded new doors to the public Sunday with a black-tie gala concert that drew the Italian president, European royalty and Italy's glitterati.

"The Great Fenice Theater is given back to Italy and the world!" Venice Mayor Paolo Costa declared at the start of the performance. "And the music announces to us that the nightmare is over."

Applause thundered out as Riccardo Muti took to the stage and conducted the Fenice orchestra and chorus in the national anthem. He then led the musicians in Beethoven's fitting overture, "Consecration of the House," as well as works by composers whose lives were touched by Venice.

To Venetians and opera and Venice lovers throughout the world, the 18th century theater represents the soul of this unique lagoon city, and its resurrection from the ashes was cause for celebration across Italy and beyond.

"When I came after the fire, there was such despair," Princess Michael of Kent, whose Venice in Peril organization donated the theater's gilded new chandelier, said during intermission. "Tonight is exhilarating."

Fans lined up throughout the day to admire the theater's newly polished marble facade, with the Fenice's gilded phoenix symbol hanging in the entranceway. Inside the bright new theater, the phoenix decorated the moss green curtain, while gilded moldings decorated each of the tiers and boxes...

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, seated in the royal box, topped off a guest list of Hollywood stars and the Italian jet-set who dressed in black tie and long gowns for the occasion.

At the time of the fire, La Fenice (pronounced feh-NEE-chay) was undergoing renovation. Two electricians set the theater ablaze during the night of Jan. 29, 1996 to avoid stiff fines their company risked for being behind in its work. They were charged with arson and sentenced to up to seven years in prison.

In the ensuing years, the rebuilding of the ornate 18th century theater was delayed by red tape, political disputes and the mere difficulty of reaching the site, which is between two canals connected by tiny bridges.

Using sketches and photographic documentation, the project by the late Aldo Risso sought to reproduce the original theater built in 1792, from its inlayed wooden floors and frescoed ceilings to the minute papier-m Fach De gilded detailing of the loges. The total cost of the renovation is estimated at $90 million.

New seating gives the renovated concert hall a total of 1,076 seats and new rehearsal and conference rooms have been created below the orchestra floor.

Muti received at least three curtain calls and a standing ovation at the end of the two-hour-long concert, and in comments to the audience at its conclusion, thanked the orchestra which he first conducted in 1970 at the beginning of his musical career.

"I want to express a wish for culture in our country, that it always be upheld, aided and protected," he said.

The city lit up the theater as well such landmarks as the Rialto bridge and the bell tower in St. Mark's Square for the gala performance, which also included works by Stravinsky, Caldara and Wagner.

Opening night was the beginning of a weeklong series of concerts including performances by visiting orchestras and conductors, and a solo performance by pop singer Elton John. On Jan. 1, Lorin Maazel will conduct the Fenice orchestra in a televised New Year's concert.

Then La Fenice will shut down again until November, when Maazel will inaugurate the opera season in the reborn theater with "La Traviata" by Giuseppe Verdi, first performed there in 1853.

Fog-shrouded Venice celebrates rebirth of its opera house
sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/
2003/12/15/international0356EST0450.DTL
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From the "TEATRO LA FENICE"  Web Site:

"The Noble Society of the new Theatre to be erected in Venice on the ground purchased in the districts of S. Angelo and S. Maria Zobenigo charged its chairmen and assistants to procure designs and models ..." inviting "both national and foreign architects to compete in proposing the form of a theatre ... that shall be most satisfying to the eye and ear of the audience...

"So ran the text announcing the competition for the construction of the Fenice Theatre, published on 1 November 1789, once a way had been found to circumvent a sumptuary law limiting the number of working theatres in Venice to seven. In its fourteen articles, the document established that the future building should contain five tiers of boxes "that are known as pepiano", with no fewer than 35 boxes in each tier. It showed a clear decision in favour of the "small loggias in accordance with the custom in Italy", in order to achieve a result that would offer a fair compromise between the two features generally required of a theatre: fine visibility and good acoustics.

A theatrical solution in keeping with Italian tradition; elsewhere in the eighteenth century theatres were built to different criteria; in France, for example, the usual system was of galleries with open boxes above a semi-circular or slightly lengthened area of stalls. It was thus a typically Italian choice, recreating within the building the conditions of an Italian piazza - a natural amphitheatre where people could be both at home and in the open; it also offered the spectator a close view, typical of anatomical theatres.

The closed-box system had its disadvantages, but was justified by the fact that the public of the day would never have agreed to forego the comforts of the separate loggias, which made each box a miniature home, where one could sit alone or in company, eat or play, and thus recreate, in a portion of privatized theatrical space, the network of relations and behavior typical of society at that time.

Since access to the theatre was primarily by water, the announcement recommended that the designers should design an entrance to accomodate a gondola, the main form of transport.

The Noble Society would give special consideration to plans of a building less prone to fire, and with easier exit in case of fire.

Attention was also addressed to actors and stage personnel, and increase the comfort and tranquility of the spectators.

A competition was held for "a decorous theatre which would at last be worthy of a capital where Palladio, Sansovino, Sammicheli, Scamozzi and other artists of the Great Century have left such noble monuments..."

The competition of twenty-eight studies stirred up a lively debate, with rival factions supporting different competitors. Among the competitors, mention must be made of Pietro Checchia, the theatrical architect, experienced in reconstructing and renovating Venetian theatres. Checchia had rebuilt the theatre of San Beneto after its destruction by fire, a theatre that was considered the best in Venice.

The young architect Sante Baseggio had to wait until 1817 to see one of his projects realized, with the Teatro Sociale in Rovigo. Nor must one forget the elderly Abbot, Antonio Marchetti, a diocesan architect, who had planned the Ridotto in Brescia.

The Paduan school of architecture was represented by Daniele Danieletti, a collaborator of Abbot Domenico Cerato, rejected the double entrance by land and water and opted for an egalitarian solution, with just one entrance. This went right against the intentions of the Committee, who wanted a balance struck between the aristocratic water-entrance and the democratic and republican land-entrance.

Another noteworthy project was presented by Giuseppe Pistocchi, the designer of a fine theatre in Faenza (1780-88).

However, the real loser of the competition was undoubtedly the official architect of Papal Rome, Cosimo Morelli, who already had to his name the theatres of Forl, Jesi, Imola, Ferrara and Macerata. His project made the short list of the four most carefully considered by the Committee, although it could be considered the most anti-Venetian of all, since it made no use of the water, included in his project simply as a useless canal.

"Not much is known of the project of another finalist, Andrea Bon from Treviso, a pupil of Giordano Riccati, other than the perhaps excessively severe verdict of the committee.

Pietro Bianchi, an architect who had already drawn up a project in 1787 for a basilica-theatre in the area of the Gardens of the Procuratie Nuove on the bank of the Grand Canal, carried a certain amount of weight, if only for the spirited opposition he stirred up against the jury's verdict. Bianchi was the son of the gondolier of Doge Grimani, the restoration of whose palazzo he had supervised in San Polo, and he did not enjoy the favour of the academic and professional world.

On the political level, what help he could count on certainly did not come from the circle of Andrea Memmo, who had helped to create "the most surprising Piazza in Europe", the Prato della Valle in Padua; it was he who had supported the idea of the new theatre, removing the obstacles to its creation.

In any case, the committee held that Bianchi's project, although encountering the favour of a vast public, did not respect the necessary rules of statics, and there were many who thought that Giannantonio Selva's victory was the fruit of a previous agreement.

The influence of the Teatro Valle in Rome and the Teatro della Scala in Milan is evident.

The judging committee was composed of Simone Stratico, an expert in naval and civil architecture and a physics teacher in Padua, Benedetto Buratti, a Somasco priest, with a good knowledge of architecture, Francesco Fontanesi, the painter and scenery-designer, who, with Pietro Gonzaga, was to help stage the inaugural presentation.

They were fiercely criticized by the public, stirred up by the supporters of the Theatre of San Beneto, who had little desire to see a potential rival created. The rising tide of criticism, however, did drive the Committee to distinguish between the assignment of the commission and the award-money.

The latter was given to Bianchi, who thus won the competition but did not have his building created.

Demolition-work to clear the area began in April 1790 under the supervision of Antonio Solari, and the theatre, built with exemplary rapidity, was completed in April 1792, so that on 16 May, the Feast of the Ascension, it was officially inaugurated with I Giuochi d'Agrigento by Count Alessandro Pepoli.

With the creation of the Fenice it could be said that the first steps were taken to implement a far-reaching project of eighteenth-century enlightenment thought, which saw architecture and public works as a means for promoting the idea of reform.

The leading spirit in this circle was Andrea Memmo. In other words, the ideal of a republican theatre was put into practice;a notion of severe austerity was communicated.

This, then, was the eagerly awaited new theatre by Giannantonio Selva, designed to host comedies and operas, and destined to be destroyed by fire on 13 December 1836.

Although remaining the property of the Societas that had built it, during the period of French domination the Fenice clearly took on the function of a State theatre. In order to give a fitting reception to Napoleon, it was decided to adorn the auditorium in blue and silver in accordance with the Imperial style now in vogue. The visit took place on Tuesday 1 December 1807

This "Napoleonic" transformation of the structure of the Fenice had been preceded the previous year by work carried out at La Scala in Milan, the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

And it was from Milan that the money came for the work (150,000 Italian lire),

After the fire of 1836, Giambattista Meduna won the ensuing competition, with the committee expressing "high praise for the whole project, commending the novelty of the concept, the elegance of the ornaments, the harmony of the lines, the well-conserved character of the style chosen."

The theatre was swiftly rebuilt, proving a "magnificent, elegant work, perfect in every part". While Selva's original theatre was designed to host both drama and musical works, the restoration carried out by Tommaso and Giambattista Meduna after the fire privileged the musical function.

Giuseppe Borsato, and his relative, Tranquillo Orsi, and Sebastiano Santi and Luigi Zandomeneghi also collaborated on the renovation. One major innovation was that the pilasters supporting the balconies were set further back, thus improving visibility,and  as the Meduna brothers noted: "... the projection of the parapets gives greater conspicuousness to the ladies, whose attractions bring joy to the theatre, and add to its ornaments; nor did we doubt that this effect would fail or be diminished when, less interested in the performance than in conversation, they moved from the edge and were hidden by it. For their aim is not only to see, nor do they want the pains they have taken in dressing to be rendered vain or to go unobserved."

Teatro La Fenice di Venezia
http://www.teatrolafenice.it