The Teatro Petruzzelli is Bari's opera house, a large theatre on Corso Cavour in the 19th-century Murat district, just south of the old town. It opened in 1903, paid for entirely by one family, and grew into one of the biggest theatres in Italy. On the night of 27 October 1991 an arson fire gutted it, and it took almost 18 years before the curtain rose again.
The Teatro Petruzzelli at a glance
- Where: Corso Cavour, in the Murattiano (Murat) district of Bari, a few minutes' walk from the seafront and from Bari Vecchia.
- Built: 1898–1903; inaugurated on 14 February 1903. Rebuilt after the 1991 fire and reopened on 4 October 2009.
- By: the brothers Onofrio and Antonio Petruzzelli, merchants and shipbuilders from Trieste, with a project overseen by their brother-in-law, the Bari engineer Angelo Messeni.
- What it is today: a working opera house and concert hall with 1,482 seats, run by the Fondazione Petruzzelli, which stages opera, ballet and symphonic concerts.
- Time needed: 10 minutes to see the façade; an evening for a performance, or the length of a guided tour if one is running.
A family theatre, a fire and a long comeback
In 1877 Bari's city council offered free land to anyone willing to build a big new theatre for the growing modern city. The Petruzzelli brothers took up the offer; the council granted them the plot in 1896 and they paid for the building themselves. Work began on 23 May 1898 and the theatre opened on 14 February 1903 with Meyerbeer's opera Les Huguenots. Originally it held more than 2,000 people. Over the following decades its stage saw Pietro Mascagni conducting one of his own operas, singers such as Beniamino Gigli, Renata Tebaldi and Luciano Pavarotti, Rudolf Nureyev and Carla Fracci, and later stars from Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles to Queen.
On the night of 26–27 October 1991, a few hours after a performance of Bellini's Norma, the theatre burned down; investigators found that the fire had been set deliberately. Only the foyer area survived. Years of legal disputes followed between the public authorities and the heirs of the founding family over who owned the theatre and who should pay to rebuild it. In the end it was reconstructed with public money, faithful to the original form but with modern safety systems, and handed over to the City of Bari. It reopened on 4 October 2009 with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the first opera of the new era was Puccini's Turandot.
What to look for
- The façade on Corso Cavour: the long, pale front of the theatre fills a whole block of the street. Step back to the opposite pavement to see all of it.
- The name 'Petruzzelli' across the front: the theatre kept the family's name even after it passed to the city.
- Inside, if you go to a performance or join a tour: the horseshoe-shaped hall with tiers of boxes, gold-leaf decoration and the ceiling paintings by the Bari artist Raffaele Armenise, recreated after the fire.
- The setting: Corso Cavour is one of the main streets of the Murat district, the grid of straight streets laid out in the 19th century. Notice how different it feels from the winding lanes of Bari Vecchia a few blocks north.
Fame on stage and screen
The Petruzzelli has also appeared in films. Its stage was used in Alberto Sordi's 1973 comedy Polvere di stelle, starring Sordi and Monica Vitti as a troupe of struggling variety artists, and Franco Zeffirelli shot scenes for Il giovane Toscanini (1988) in the foyer. Since its reopening the theatre has also hosted the Bif&st, the Bari International Film Festival.
Tips for your visit
- The best way to see the hall is to book a performance: opera, ballet and concerts run through most of the year. Guided tours are offered on some days; check the theatre's programme before you go.
- The façade looks best in the evening, when it is lit up and people gather outside before a show.
- Combine it with a walk along Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to the seafront and the old town, which starts only a few minutes away.
Nearby
- Teatro Margherita: a 1910s theatre built on piles over the sea at the edge of the old town, now an exhibition space.
- Piazza del Ferrarese: the square at the entrance to Bari Vecchia, with a section of the old Roman road visible under glass.
- Bari Vecchia: the old town's maze of white lanes, where women still make orecchiette pasta by hand outside their doors.
- Basilica di San Nicola: the Romanesque basilica that holds the relics of St Nicholas, a pilgrimage site for Catholics and Orthodox Christians alike.
See Bari with World City Trail
Our Bari scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around 2 hours, with about 35 minutes of walking. It leads you through the lanes of Bari Vecchia to the Basilica di San Nicola.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Bari.
Play the Bari scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Bari →
Play the outdoor escape game in Bari →
Facts checked in October 2026.