Pirandello Theatre – Agrigento

Built in 1870 by engineer Dionisio Sciascia and architect Giovan Battista Filippo Basile, the Agrigento theatre opened ten years later, named after Queen Margherita. It was in 1946, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Luigi Pirandello’s death, that the theatre was given its current name, a tribute to the great playwright and Nobel Prize winner also commemorated with a pair of marble plaques.

The atrium of Palazzo dei Giganti, seat of the Town Hall, serves as the entrance to the theatre, which rises on two levels, in neoclassical style. The decoration of the top part is entrusted to six medallion bas-reliefs depicting six authors of the theatrical art. We admire the interior decoration of the ceiling and boxes, works by the great 19th-century Milanese painters Giuseppe Belloni, Luigi Sacco and Antonio Tavella.

The theatre’s gem? The curtain by the Messina painter Luigi Queriau, representing the valiant athlete of ancient Akragas, Esseneto, returning victorious from Elea (a work reproduced in 2007 by the Agrigento artist Francesco Bellomo, who donated a new curtain). The foyer displays the bust of Zeus and that of Luigi Pirandello.

Today, the Luigi Pirandello Valle dei Templi Theatre Foundation in Agrigento offers a varied annual season, from prose to orchestra and choir activities.