The Teatro dell'Opera in Rome - Michele Marriotti

Pre-order. Published 14 September 2026 — we'll send your copy on publication day. Order now and we'll put one aside for you. Free UK delivery on orders over £20, or collect from the shop in Oxford's Covered Market.

Rising near the baths of Diocletian, where Imperial Rome once proclaimed its power, the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome stands as a different but no less enduring monument to Italian genius. Inaugurated in 1880 as the Teatro Costanzi, it was born at a pivotal hour - when a newly unified Italy sought not only political coherence but a shared cultural soul. Within its crimson and golden interiors, that soul found one of its most resounding expressions. Here Puccini's Tosca premiered in 1900, at a time when the theatre became both witness and protagonist of modernity - surviving war, regime, and reinvention - while safeguarding a repertoire that binds Italy to the wider world. To enter its auditorium is to step into a continuum: ancient stone outside, velvet and light within, and above all the breath of singers transforming silence into shared memory.�This is a stunning volume, enriched by glorious photography, that honours and uplifts one of the most important opera houses in the world. Text in English and Italian.�