Attraction —
Add toMy Guide
ARENA DEL SOLE
Bologna City | Attractions | Theatres
The Arena del Sole, "a place for day-time shows", as reported on the inscription above the entrance, was inaugurated on 5 July 1810.
The open-air, stone theatre was built on the initiative of Pietro Bonini, a businessman who dealt in poultry, on the site of the sixteenth-century convent of the Domenican nuns of St. Maria Maddalena, which was abandoned at the time of the suppression of religious organisations during Napoleonic occupation of Bologna.
Some parts of this ancient convent are still visible today: the cloister for example, serves a theatrical use in summer.
The architecture was of neoclassic inspiration, antagonist to the baroque, considered as classist, and the Jacobean ideology that attributed to the theatre a crucial role in the cultural and political education of the people.
Throughout the 1800s and the early 1900s, from Easter until the end of September, the Arena was visited by many great companies.
To quote just some of the great performers who appeared on its stage: Tommaso Salvini, Eleonora Duse, Giovanni Emanuel, Irma Gramatica, Ermete Zacconi, Ermete Novelli, Ruggero Ruggeri, Dina Galli, Virginia Marini, Lyda Borelli, Ettore Petrolini, Maria Melato, Paola Borboni, Marta Abba, Renzo Ricci.
From 1916, the theatre was fitted with removable roofs which were continually improved and which, besides enabling a winter programme, also made it possible the movie projection which was intensified in the 1930s as an anticipation of the drastic transformation of the theatre into a cinema in 1949. The rest is recent history.
In 1984 the Municipality of Bologna purchased the building. The theatre hosted two seasons, 1984-85 and 1985-86, under the artistic direction of Yuri Lyubimov.
Its radical restructuring began in 1986 as a result of the efforts of the City Council and the Emilia Romagna Region, and resulted in the theatre's rebirth in 1995 under the direction of Nuova Scena-Teatro Stabile di Bologna.

Program For January:
26, 27, 28 January
Vancouver City Dance Theatre
Dreams of Dalì
Coreography by Roberta Baseggio
In collaboration with ATERDANZA
from the 31st of January - 19th of February
Civis
Written by Francesco Freyrie
Casting by Daniele Sala
with Vito & Les Triplettes de Belleville:
Silvia Donati, Daniela Galli, Barbara Giorgi
Program For February:
3, 4 February
Fondazione Teatro Piemonte Europa
in collaboration with Musica90
"Viaggio al termine della notte"
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
(copyright Editions Gallimard - Paris)
with Elio Germano & Teho Teardo
Violoncello Martina Bertoni
From the 7th to the 12th of February
Fondazione del Teatro Stabile di Torino
in collaboration with Teatro di Dioniso
"Signorina Giulia"
by August Strindberg
A spectacle by Valter Malosti
with Valeria Solarino, Valter Malosti, Federica Fracassi
From the 16th to the 19th of February
Teatro dell'Archivolto
"Eretici e Corsari"
From the works of Giorgio Gaber, Sandro Luporini & Pier Paolo Pasolini
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE...
2 October 2015 to 28 February 2016 - Palazzo Albergati – Art Experience, Bologna
...In the heart fo the...
Frescoed on the first floor by Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico Carracci in their early days, Palazzo Fava was described by Roberto Longhi as “a...
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Bologna was a European centre of excellence for the study and performance of music, on a par with London and Leipzig,...
While reading an issue of Bologna for Connoisseurs, I was struck by how many things I have not seen or done in Bologna. I lived on via D’Azeglio...
What The Eiffel Tower is to Paris, the Two Towers are to Bologna: the symbol of the city, built between 1109 and 1119, they make...