Teatro Antica di Taormina,
Sicily.
For more than two millennia, Taormina on Sicily’s eastern coast has laid claim to what you could say is the world’s most dramatic theatre in terms of its natural setting between Mount Etna and the sparkling Ionian Sea.
Created by the Greeks more than 300 years before Christ, it was redeveloped by the Romans and then fell into neglect, when it was raided for building material for the rest of the town.
Its fortunes were revived when the gentlemen’s grand tours began, Goethe hailed its beauty and Taormina became a “videnda” or must see. After Goethe, the long list of luminaries who flocked to Sicily’s precious jewel have included Thomas Mann, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
The theatre now demands entrance fees on the premise: “Tourism and monument preservation are two sides of the same coin”. Not just a museum, it is also an arts venue, home to the annual Taormina Film Festival, as well as concerts, operas and theatre.
It has also been the setting for Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite” and the HBO drama “The White Lotus” and in theory has the capacity to hold an audience of 10,000 people – on a par with China’s Great Auditorium in Beijing.
To quote “We are Palermo”, a local guide to Sicily, any drama staged in the Teatro Antico will struggle to compete with the theatre itself.
“Our 2,300-year-old knockout that still knows how to steal the show,” it declares with true Sicilian pride.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
Teatro Antica di Taormina,
Sicily.
For more than two millennia, Taormina on Sicily’s eastern coast has laid claim to what you could say is the world’s most dramatic theatre in terms of its natural setting between Mount Etna and the sparkling Ionian Sea.
Created by the Greeks more than 300 years before Christ, it was redeveloped by the Romans and then fell into neglect, when it was raided for building material for the rest of the town.
Its fortunes were revived when the gentlemen’s grand tours began, Goethe hailed its beauty and Taormina became a “videnda” or must see. After Goethe, the long list of luminaries who flocked to Sicily’s precious jewel have included Thomas Mann, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
The theatre now demands entrance fees on the premise: “Tourism and monument preservation are two sides of the same coin”. Not just a museum, it is also an arts venue, home to the annual Taormina Film Festival, as well as concerts, operas and theatre.
It has also been the setting for Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite” and the HBO drama “The White Lotus” and in theory has the capacity to hold an audience of 10,000 people – on a par with China’s Great Auditorium in Beijing.
To quote “We are Palermo”, a local guide to Sicily, any drama staged in the Teatro Antico will struggle to compete with the theatre itself.
“Our 2,300-year-old knockout that still knows how to steal the show,” it declares with true Sicilian pride.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, architecture, history, theatre, travel • Tags: architecture, Barbara Lewis, history, theatre, travel