Objective measurement of the listening condition in the old Italian opera house "Teatro di San Carlo"

The Teatro di San Carlo (Naples-Italy) is known to be the oldest working th eatre in Europe. Since its opening on 4 November 1737 (41 years before the opening of La Scala in Milan and 51 years before the opening of La Fenice i n Venice) a number of famous singers, musicians, conductors, and other arti sts as well, have brought great prestige to this theatre. The San Carlo is not short of praise for its acoustics but, to the knowledge of the authors, no objective study about this subject has ever been published. This paper reports the results of acoustic measurements carried out with the aim of ob taining objective parameters describing the acoustics of the San Carlo from the point of view of the listeners. They disclose a behaviour of the theat re that is typical of the Italian style opera house (C) 2000 Academic Press .