Palermo’s Teatro Massimo is the biggest opera house in Italy and a symbol of the mafia’s disgrace in Sicily. It also starred in “The Godfather: Part III.”
Yes, Milan’s La Scala may have more seats, and La Fenice in la Venezia is more venerable by a century, but Palermo’s Teatro Massimo is easily the biggest in Italy, a sprawling, 83,000-square-foot, neo-romantic edifice that dominates the Sicilian capital’s antique skyline. In Europe, only L’Opéra in Paris and the State Opera in Vienna are bigger.
Source: Not Just a Pretty Facade, Palermo’s Opera Is an Anti-Mafia Symbol