Quirinale

I love staying at hotels with interesting histories. This isn’t always possible, of course, but on a recent trip to Rome I hit on a good one. I stayed at Hotel Quirinale, named after one of the famed seven hills of Rome. There was a lot to love about the hotel, but I was particularly fascinated by its connection to the Teatro dell’Opera located just around the corner. I use the word “connection” in the most literal sense. Hotel Quirinale happens to be the only hotel in the world with a corridor that connects directly to an opera house.

Both the opera house and the hotel were designed by architect Domenico Costanzi in 1865. Since then, thanks to its proximity to the opera house, the hotel has hosted its share of musical guests, such as Puccini, Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and Riccardo Muti. Giuseppe Verdi not only stayed at the hotel in 1893, but made use of the connecting corridor on opening night for his opera Falstaff so he could greet fans from the balcony of his room after the performance. That room is called, of course, the Giuseppe Verdi Room.

Opera singer Maria Callas stayed often at Hotel Quirinale, although it was not always a pleasant stay. Callas allegedly used the connecting corridor to avoid unhappy fans after she walked out of a performance. It was 1958, on opening night of Callas’ run in Bellini’s Norma. Callas was heading towards the end of her career and apparently was starting to have some concerns about her voice. After a not particularly well-received first act, the famed diva refused to go back on stage and escaped to the privacy of her hotel room through the private corridor. Although that was not her best night, Callas apparently loved her room at Hotel Quirinale and the hotel loved her back. I passed the room named for her every day for the week I stayed at Hotel Quirinale. There is a lot of history to the hotel – members of the Medici family are rumored to have stayed there – but I was drawn to the door adorned with the name Maria Callas. Walking by, I found myself wishing the walls could talk to me or, more appropriately, sing to me. They did not, but it was enough to imagine what went on behind that door.