Teatro Malibran

Built upon the place where the well-known traveller Marco Polo's residence once stood, it was designed by Thomas Bezzi for the Grimani family.

It became the biggest, most luxurious and extravagant stage in Venice, known for its sumptuous productions and high quality singers such as Margherita Durastanti, prima donna between 1709 and 1712.

During the 1730s, the San Giovanni Grisostomo began a slow and inexorable decline, although managing to keep its position at the head of Venetian theatres until the middle of the eighteenth century.

Gallo's son took over in 1852; it was auctioned in 1886 then radically redecorated in the Egyptian style;[1] it was closed for six years after a single operatic season in 1913 due to security problems, but it re-opened to present Verdi's Otello in December 1919 plus much of the popular Italian repertory after that.

In 1992 the municipality of Venice purchased the theatre, and the action which they took—especially that following the destruction of the Teatro La Fenice in January 1996—is recounted on the Commune de Venezia's website: The Malibran became the temporary home to the Fenice orchestra and, after a decade of work, the 900-seat Malibran was re-opened on 23 May 2001 by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, with a gala concert which included excerpts of operas by Verdi (the centennial of his death), by Bellini (the centennial of his birth) and also work by Wagner.