Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Florence is not only the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, the home of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, but also the heart of the entire Western musical tradition.

In the mid-16th century, the Florentine Camerata experimented with setting Greek mythology to music and, in other words, performed the first operas. They set the wheels in motion for the further development of opera and the later emergence of other "classical" forms, such as the symphony.
Following this tradition and the lived customs of the Calendimaggio, the festival "Maggio Musicale Fiorentino" was founded in 1933, almost simultaneously with the festivals of Salzburg and Bayreuth.

The first concert of the orchestra, founded in 1928 as Stabile Orchestra Fiorentina and renamed Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in the founding year of the festival, took place in the Teatro Comunale di Firenze. In 1933, the Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino was also formed. While the orchestra quickly became one of the most important orchestras in Europe, the festival became the center for the dissemination of the great European musical culture, where new and unconventional ideas are developed regarding the preservation of classical repertoire and visions for the performance of contemporary compositions.

The Maggio Festival has thus become a reference point for the most important names in spoken theater, orchestra conductors, stage managers, and artists who have taken turns on the Florentine stage for decades.

Since 2014, the newly built Maggio Theater, awarded for its architecture, has been the home of the Maggio Festival, which takes place in spring and early summer, and of the Teatro Maggio, directed by Alexander Pereira, from 2019 until the beginning of 2023.  

“Florence must not sell itself short!”

Alexander Pereira, former General Director