The Teatro San Carlo, or Teatro di San Carlo, Real Teatro di San Carlo (Royal Theatre of Saint Charles), was built in 1737 and is the opera of Naples.
The theater was built at the request of Charles de Bourbon and was inaugurated on November 4th. In 1816, the theater was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in less than a year. It is the largest theater in the city of Naples and the oldest surviving opera in Europe today. It can accommodate three thousand spectators arranged in a horseshoe, a large royal box and a long audience of about thirty-five meters.
Stendhal attended the second night of the inauguration and wrote: « There is nothing in all Europe, I won’t say comparable to this theatre, but which gives the slightest idea of what it is like…, it dazzles the eyes, it enraptures the soul… ».