"BUONA PUGLIA MAGAZINE,
taste to Visit”
Quarterly magazine
11/01/2010
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The countdown for the opening of the Petruzzelli Theatre has started. Soon the fourth Italian theatre by size, the biggest cultural venue of the city of Bari, situated in the heart of its historic centre, will open again to public. The red and white politeama renowned worldwide, built between 1898 and 1903, which has hosted artists like Von Karajan, Pavarotti, Nureyev, Liz Taylor, De Filippo, Riccardo Muti and Zeffirelli, will come back to life to stir emotions, after almost twenty years from the 27th October 1991, day in which a fire almost entirely destroyed it. The grand opening will take place in March and it will be a big event for the entire city, because the Petruzzelli is not just a place for arts, but it represents communal wealth. Technicians and workers have ended the period in the building yard and are now working at the testing phases. The theatre has undergone a historic-technological restyling, carried out meticulously with the most sought after materials, so as not to change its original aesthetical aspect. Everything has been faithfully reproduced. Stucco, friezes, lamps and furniture were cloned realistically, based on the iconographic repertoire available; even the big arch of the proscenium and the pediment of the stage have maintained their full primary form. The reconstruction has also served to give a more solid structure to the decorative arrangement. Many items that were made of papier-mâché – Greek frets, frames, small putti and caryatids - which in 1991 ended up feeding the fire, are made of a special plaster, light and fire retardant, while the balustrades are cement covered (and not made of wood). New less bulky seats will make it possible to add 70 seats in the stalls, thus increasing the total capacity to 1500. Rather difficult to recreate the original curtain, the one with painted allegories and mythology of Bari, and the frescoes of the cupola, painted by Raffaele Armenise, narrating the story, in a bucolic Puglia liberty, of the landing of the Venetians to free the city from the siege of the Saracens. By using new technology, the authentic images of the frescos will be video-projected on the vault, left plain white with gold insets, as the originals are impossible to recreate. 
A sort of virtual memorial of the original ceiling collapsed during the fire, which completely destroyed the horseshoe like hall and part of the stage. The new stage will be bigger and will make it possible to use complex stage machinery, while even the façade will remain in the traditional nuance purple red and white, colours of the city coat of arms.
Still a few small final touches and the “Petruzzelli 2009”, with a modern technological heart and a structure maintaining intact all the signs of tradition, will be ready to become again the magic stage that once was. The city farthest East of Italy, door to the East, will open up again to artists from all over the world.
