IT ALL STARTED HERE

The artistic and commercial opportunities that a reconstructed Baroque opera theatre in Venice would create for its people are enormous.

The theatre’s seminal status and historic location in the very heart of the birthplace of public opera would guarantee a blue-chip status in all artistic, commercial and marketing activities. The monopoly it would hold as the only theatre of its kind returned home to the world’s most beautiful city makes for a perfect alignment of the core conditions necessary to deliver both artistic and commercial success for the benefit of all Venetians.

Together, Venice and the Teatro San Cassiano have the potential to become:

• Renowned as the foremost centre of excellence in the staging of historically informed Baroque opera worldwide
• The home of a unique collaboration between musicological research and music performance into the staging of Baroque opera
• The pre-eminent global centre of a growing and expanding worldwide Baroque opera market.

Despite the unique opportunities for Venice, it is equally clear that increasing tourism (already at c. 30 million per annum) is not a desire for most Venetians, and that there is a real need to shape tourist activity to better suit the delicate environmental demands of Venice itself.

This project remains sympathetic to this philosophy and believes it can play a positive role in assisting its management to the greater good.

The problem mainly comes in the breakdown of the 30 million tourists and the imbalance between ‘good’ tourists (c. 5 million) who stay in hotels, eat in restaurants and invest in the economy and ‘bad’ tourists (the infamous ‘day-trippers’, c. 25 million) who do not stay overnight, bring their own food, buy cheap mementos and whose spend in the city is essentially below sustainable levels, both environmentally and economically.

The crux for Venice going forward is how to redress this imbalance, ideally by reducing the ‘bad’ tourists and increasing the ‘good’.

Within this context, the modern-day Baroque enthusiast offers a committed patron willing to travel to pursue their passion. In turn, they create a wealth of commercial opportunities given their target cultural interests. Their impact on Venice will support a refocus on greater cultural activities and result in increased hotel and travel packages linked to specific ticket options and a night at the opera.

There will be a clear opportunity for local rejuvenation through direct and indirect employment at the theatre and in terms of its supporting infrastructure. This will extend to the immediate community and have a huge beneficial impact on local providers of accommodation, restaurants, bars and shops directly tailored to the needs of these patrons. The project bears comparison to and will profit from models already proven such as the rejuvenation of London’s Bankside following the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.

The fundamental belief is that these opportunities come in a form which will be good both for the financial and environmental considerations of Venice. Not only will the commercial opportunities lead to increased commerce, but the type of patron the theatre will entice in turns offers Venice precisely the type of ‘good’ tourist it so desperately needs.