Terme di Caracalla are the roman summer stage

• Published 11/06/2010
• in Category Events in Rome

Terme di Caracalla is one of the most imposing thermal compound of the antiquity. Built by Caracalla in 212 a.d., thermal baths worked until 537 a.d. when VItige, Goti’s king, during the Rome’s siege, stopped the aqueduct. The compound have been built in the south outlying area of the City with a 9000 worker employment. They had to level Aventino’s slopes to build a 300 meter side platform. That was the podium of the richest thermal compound of the antiquity. The build was abandoned after Vitige’s siege and became a cemetery.

Since 1500 till today thanks to al lot of excavating campaigns a big part of the original structure is resurfaced. Since 1937 the Caracalla’s area have been the summer center of the Opera House of Rome. From that time the monumental compound offers some incomparable emotions to the players and to their audience. During the firsts years of life of this summer theatre, the stage was near theTepidarium: it measured 1500 square meters with a proscenium of 22 meters. 8000 people could attend to the show. In a second time the theatre stage was moved to a the esedra of the Calidarium and the stalls could give hospitality to more than 22000 people.

A lot of stars performed on the open-air theatre of “Terme di Caracalla”: the first performance took place in August 1937: Oliviero de Fabritiis, Toti dal Monte and Oliviero Gigli performed Lucia of Lammermoore written by Gaetano Lonzetti. After them stars like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Josè Carreras, Franco Correlli, Alfredo Kraus, Antonietta Stella, Giulietta Simionato, Mario del Monaco acted on this stage.

This summer you can live again the emotions offered by the great Opera.

July 1st will be the day of Romeo and Juliet ballet. As an arrangement of the namesake one of William Shakespeare, the ballet written by Prokofiev in 1936 will be directed by Nir Kabaretti and overseen by Carla Fracci.

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