What does a theatre have to do with geology?
Little, on the surface, but underneath there’s a story binding them together.
The salinity crisis that disrupted the Mediterranean Sea five million years ago produced, in the heart of Sicily, huge amounts of rocks containing gypsum, salt and sulphur.
Therefore, since ancient times these deposits have been exploited. Salt is still mined in some of Europe’s largest reservoirs: Petralia, Realmonte, Racalmuto.
It is thanks to sulphur, however, that some industrial families accumulated enough wealth during the 19th century to make a wish come true: to have an opera house in Racalmuto.
Regina Margherita theatre was built between 1870-1880, in a style similar to that of Teatro Massimo of Palermo. It remained closed for a long time later in the 20th century (it was used as a cinema) to be reopened in the early 2000s with the writer Andrea Camilleri as art director.
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