The Teatro Politeama in Palermo at Night, March 2005

The Teatro Politeama Garibaldi is the first in order of time of the great theatres constructed in Palermo during the second half of the nineteenth century, as one of numerous far-reaching town-planning projects. Designed by Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda in 1867 and completed in 1891, it dominates the square that was to become the heart of the modern city, reflecting the felicitous condition of artistic culture in Palermo and of the new bourgeois governing class in Europe in general.

Some years before, in 1860, the first mayor of Palermo after the unification of Italy, Giulio Benso, Duke della Verdura, had sparked discussions on the city’s future layout between some who supported an “economic” model and others desiring something “grandiose” – in the end the latter group won the day, having accepted some modifications. The plan was for a new city centre stretching westwards from Via Maqueda, expanding along the new Strada della Libertà conceived by Ruggiero Settimo’s revolutionary government in 1848. Along this thoroughfare there were to be three theatres: one more or less there the Massimo is, another beyond the crossroads in Piazza Regalmici (Quattro Canti di Campagna), and the third, an “Olympic circus”, in the garden of Villarosa (now Piazza Ungheria).

During the preparatory phase of the international competition for the construction of the Teatro Massimo, the municipal authority entrusted Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda, a young civil engineer born in Capua in 1834, with the task of designing a “polytheama” (a theatre for shows of many kinds), located in the square dedicated to Ruggiero Settimo, to serve as a daytime popular theatre. One reason for the initiative was to combat the atmosphere of social and economic crisis after a cholera epidemic in 1866-67. The theatre was to be a venue of equestrian circus exhibitions of gymnastics and acrobatics, then all the rage, operettas, comedy plays, dramas, and festive celebrations in general – not just for the aristocracy and the well-to-do, as well as operatic performances pending completion of the Teatro Massimo. Thus, perhaps for the only time in Italy, two theatres were being built at one and the same time: one – the Massimo – an aristocratic temple of opera; the other – the Politeama – more popular in character, intended to exalt theatre’s social function.

In 1874, although incomplete and unroofed, the theatre was inaugurated with Vincenzo Bellini,s The Montagues and the Capulets; other operas followed in the next few years, alternating with the Teatro Bellini. In 1874 the Oretea Foundry made the metallic covering, an extremely bold work for the times that was declared by some to be “impossible”. In 1882, after his death, the theatre was dedicated to Giuseppe Garibaldi. But the official opening was in 1891, on the occasion of the inaugural evening of the National Exhibition: an exceptional gala in the presence of King Umberto and Queen Margherita, with the performance of Verdi’s Otello, with the celebrated singer Francesco Tamagno in the leading role. In the 1891-92 season, the star conductor was Arturo Toscanini.

While the construction of the Massimo dragged on slowly amid sterile polemics that delayed its opening, the Teatro Politeama played an important role in the National Exhibition in 1891-92, when it was the venue of numerous events and public performances. For this special occasion a number of “ephemeral” pavilions were set up in the area adjoining the Radaly orange orchard, in what was known as the Firriato di Villafranca (Villafranca Estate), which stretched between Via Libertà and the present-day Via Dante, Via XX Settembre, Via Garzilli, Via Spaccaforno, Via Villafranca, and Piazza Mordini alle Croci – later to become the city’s new residential quarter.

In 1897, with the opening of the Teatro Massimo, the new city centre began to take shape, with its two squares and two theatres opening mirror-wise at opposite ends of Via Ruggiero Settimo: the first, higher up towards Olivella and the old city centre, the second, lower down towards the new development zone of the F