Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers—Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi—were performed.

However, following a judicial ruling in 1787, this association was expelled and forced to give up the opera house to the noble Venier family, the owners of the land on which it was built.

A competition was then announced for the design of the opera house, and the committee of experts selected the work of the architect Giannantonio Selva from the 29 plans submitted.

La Fenice immediately made its mark as one of the leading opera houses, noted in Italy and Europe both for the high artistic quality of its work and the splendour of its building.

But, almost as if the name were the bearer of bad omens, on the night of 13 December 1836 the opera house was devastated by a first fire caused by a recently installed Austrian heater.

On 23 July 1935 the box-holder owners ceded their share in the opera house to the Comune di Venezia, so it went from private to public ownership, and in 1937-8 part of building was subject to further major restorations and alterations by engineer Eugenio Miozzi.

On the night of 29 January 1996, during a period of closure for restoration works, a second fire – as the Myth said – this time arson, completely destroyed the house and most of the Sale Apollinee.

By 1789, with interest from a number of wealthy opera lovers who wanted a spectacular new house, "a carefully defined competition" was organised to find a suitable architect.

Donizetti, fresh from his triumphs at La Scala in Milan and at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, returned to Venice in 1836 with his Belisario, after an absence of seventeen years.

In 1930, the Venice Biennale initiated the First International Festival of Contemporary Music, which brought such composers as Stravinsky and Britten, and more recently Berio, Nono, and Bussotti, to write for La Fenice.

As Gillian Price notes, "This time round, thanks to an enlightened project by late Italian architect Aldo Rossi and the motto 'how it was, where it was', it has been fitted out with extra rehearsal areas and state-of-the-art stage equipment, while the seating capacity has been increased from 840 to 1000.

[citation needed] Built in 1792 to a plan by the architect Giannantonio Selva, the façade of the building is the only element to have completely survived the two fires that almost entirely destroyed the opera house in 1836 and 1996.

Unlike the other theaters in the city, whose entrances are in secluded places like alleys and small squares, La Fenice is the only historic Venetian theatre facing onto an open space, Campo San Fantin.

The first sculptures that adorned the entrance to the opera house, in terracotta and carved in Baroque style, were attributed to either Giuseppe Bernardi or his nephew Giovanni Ferrari, both of whom taught Canova.

Escaping entirely unharmed from the first fire that destroyed the original La Fenice Opera House on the night of December 1836, the entrance, by Selva, was enlarged in 1937 as part of the upgrading works directed by the engineer Eugenio Miozzi.

The opera house entrance is therefore the area in which the largest number of original elements of the building survive: part of the decoration and most of the columns, the floor and the access stairs to the boxes.

Reconstruction was based on the architect Aldo Rossi's design, keeping to the motto "As it was, where it was," which had been applied to the rebuilding of St Mark's bell Campanile, exactly the same as the original and taking ten years, after it collapsed in 1902.

The guiding principle was that of recreating the original house, particularly its specific technical solution based mainly on the use of wood, carefully chosen and treated to obtain the best acoustic response.

The curtain was reproduced on the basis of an examination of historic documentation, in dark-green, deep nap, fire-resistant synthetic velvet decorated with 1,100 flowers in gilt leather.

The first imperial loggia was built only provisionally in 1807 to accommodate the emperor, Napoleon, who was expected in the opera house on Tuesday 1 December 1807 for a performance of the cantata Il Giudizio di Giove by Lauro Corniani Algarotti.

This was destroyed by the fire that struck La Fenice in December 1836, and was rebuilt along with the rest of the house by the Meduna brothers in 1837, with the assistance of Giuseppe Borsato, who increased the splendor of the decorations.

At the end of March 1848, following insurrectionary uprising and the Republic of Venice's consequent declaration of independence from Austria, the loggia was taken down so that the original tiers of boxes could be reinstated in the so-called "Republican" house.

There was a third Savoy shield on the crown of the external cornice, but this was removed after the republican victory in the referendum of 2 June 1946 and replaced with the lion of St Mark, the symbol of Venice.

The Sale Apollinee, so named because dedicated to the Greek god Apollo, father of the Muses and patron of the Arts, including music, consists of five rooms whose current layout dates from 1937.

He performed a series of dances in Ballet Royal de la Nuit, in the final piece as Apollo in a costume with a kilt of golden rays—and thus became known as the Sun King.

The surviving fragments can be easily recognized, as the precise intention of the reconstruction work was that it highlight the difference between the historic sections and the recent additions.

Thanks to these completions, the Sale Apollinee has been rebuilt on the basis of the originals, though a wider range of choice was conceded than in the house, shown by the new upholstery and furnishings in these rooms.

To celebrate the event, the painter Giacomo Casa created a large composition within the decorative ceiling frame, showing Italy in the act of crowning the great poet and six tempera fresco paintings on the walls, with the same number of scenes from the Divine Comedy.

Used over the years for different purposes, the Sala Grande was an elegant venue for balls, chamber music concerts, conferences or book launches, and (before La Fenice was provided with special rooms for them) rehearsals.

The current floor has been faithfully rebuilt to the original model and its characteristic floral patterns reproduced, requiring the use of various types of wood: maple, olive, and cherry.