Gioachino Rossini: The Barber of Seville (Teatro La Fenice)

In the world of opera, Venice’s Gran Teatro La Fenice has been one of the most recognisable symbols of musical-dramatic art for centuries. Its own dramatic history, punctuated by turbulent ownership disputes, has been particularly marked by three devastating fires. The most recent, in 1996, burned the theatre to the ground. The fire was apparently caused by faulty wiring. Even the name of the theatre derives from its “fiery” history, since fenice is the Italian word for phoenix, the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes. Yet La Fenice is more than an architectural icon – it is also home to the bel canto tradition and its four principal exponents: Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. It is Gioachino Rossini’s comic masterpiece The Barber of Seville that the Venetian company is set to bring to Cankarjev Dom in July 2026. The Barber was originally created not for a Venetian audience but for a Roman one, which however initially rejected the work, seeing it as a poor copy of an existing version of the opera by another Italian composer. Yet the story of the young Count Almaviva, who woos the beautiful Rosina with the help of the enterprising barber Figaro, a story interwoven with Rossini’s typically melodious yet sparkling and witty music, soon captured the hearts not only of Italian audiences but of the opera-going public all over the world.