For over 20 years, Pamela Lanier's Venice, Italy Travel Guide has been your connection to Venice's tourism community with invaluable details on local attractions, restaurants, shopping, museums, history, outdoor recreation and more.
Cultural Entertainment
During the annual month-long Venice Carnival, the city celebrates its past with festivities that include shows, balls, plays, and music throughout the city. Celebrants don mysterious masks and elaborate costumes, dating back to the days when Venetians believed that wearing a mask allowed one the opportunity to take certain liberties, to be free from constraints. The variety of masks that Venetians wore range from the mute mask with a small button over the mouth to prevent speech, to the bauta with a full length mantle that drops over the shoulders and down to the waist. The Venice Carnival is a magical, mysterious fete.
A visit to the Teatro La Fenice for a tour or an opera production is a one-of-a-kind experience. A tour through the prestigious hall allows visitors to uncover the history and secrets of the theatre. Guided tours are available for large groups and audio tours in Italian, English, German, French, and Spanish are available in the Box Office.
The Scuola Grande di San Roco is one of Venice’s most illustrious sacred buildings and is an unsurpassed locale for listening to Gregorian chant and organ music. One of the main attractions inside the Scuola is a story of canvases by Tintoretto, paintings that are for Venice what the Sistine Chapel is for Rome.
In odd-numbered years, Venice hosts its famous Biennale--a biennial modern-art exposition that features painters, sculptors, and performance artists from around the world dating back to 1894, with only a brief suspension of festivities during a few years of World War II. Most sanctioned events take place in the Giardini Pubblici, which has some 40 permanent national pavilions; at the Corderie dell'Arsenale, a short distance away; and at the Museum Correr on the Piazza San Marco. Some works are displayed in other locations around the city. Unofficial shows and performances take place all over town during the Biennale, especially between mid-June and mid-July. Check with the tourist office when you're in Venice for current schedules.
For more than 60 years, the Venice International Film Festival has brought movie stars, moguls, and the media to the Lido, the narrow resort island that separates the Venetian Lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Roger Ebert has described the Venice festival as "Cannes without the hassle," and he could have added that the beach is better, too. If you're in Venice during the festival and want to catch a glimpse of the action, take any vaporetto or car ferry that goes to the Lido.
