Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta at Teatro Quirino, February 16 to 28, 2027

Il commissario Montalbano, the first stage adaptation of the character created by Andrea Camilleri, with Vincenzo Pirrotta in the lead, adapted by Micaela Miano and directed by Guglielmo Ferro, is on at Teatro Quirino Vittorio Gassman, Via delle Vergini 7 (00187 Rome), from February 16 to 28, 2027. The show is produced by Teatro Quirino Centro di Produzione together with the Centro Teatrale Bresciano. The theater lists the rest of the cast as still being defined, and the times of the individual performances are not yet published on the show page. Quirino is in the Trevi district, between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain, and can be reached on foot from the Barberini and Spagna stops on Metro Line A. Prices are published by the theater in the tickets and subscriptions section. Tickets are bought on the official Teatro Quirino website, with the online purchase button on the show page, at the box office on Via delle Vergini or through the theater's telephone ticket office.

Language: performed in Italian. No English version or English surtitles are announced.

Il commissario Montalbano at Quirino: dates, times and tickets

Il commissario Montalbano is on at Teatro Quirino in Rome from February 16 to 28, 2027, for almost two weeks, closing on Sunday, February 28.

The times

The show page gives the period but not yet the schedule of the individual performances. At Quirino the times change from day to day, with evening shows, performances at 19:00 and matinees: the exact information should be checked on the theater's website at the time of purchase.

Tickets

The show page has an online purchase button linked to the theater's ticket office. For reservations, changes and telephone purchases the theater gives a remote ticket office, open Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 13:00 and from 14:00 to 18:00, at 06 6794585 or at biglietteria@teatroquirino.com. The prices of the different sections are published in the tickets and subscriptions section.

The credits

Text by Andrea Camilleri, adaptation by Micaela Miano, direction by Guglielmo Ferro, starring Vincenzo Pirrotta. The cast that will join Pirrotta is listed as being defined.

Il commissario Montalbano on stage: the project

Il commissario Montalbano at Quirino, according to the theater's presentation, is the first time the inspector's world reaches the stage, with an adaptation conceived as a single dramaturgical organism and not as an episodic adaptation.

A mosaic of stories

The show is born from the interweaving of several Camilleri stories: a mosaic that brings the writer's narrative universe to the stage. The theater speaks of an unprecedented project, which turns a much-loved literary imagination into a theatrical experience made of bodies, breath, silences and light.

A journey into the man

At the center is the soul of a man who observes the world with irony, disenchantment and a stubborn sense of justice. This time, says the presentation, the investigation is not only about crimes: it widens to the man, to conscience, to the passing of time and to the ever-present need for justice and humanity.

A production bet

The project is backed by Teatro Quirino Centro di Produzione and the Centro Teatrale Bresciano, who chose to invest decisively in an initiative that is ambitious economically and culturally. In a complicated moment for Italian theater, the producers present the show as an act of trust in theater as a place of encounter, reflection and cultural diffusion, able to speak to different audiences.

Salvo Montalbano, the character

Salvo Montalbano is the police inspector of the imaginary town of Vigata, on the Sicilian coast, protagonist of a series of crime novels and stories by Andrea Camilleri and of the television series drawn from them.

The name

Camilleri chose the name Montalbano as a tribute to the Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, creator of the detective Pepe Carvalho. The two characters share a love of good food and good reading, brisk and unconventional ways of solving cases and a complicated love story with an equally complicated woman.

The language

The Montalbano stories are written in an Italian strongly contaminated by Sicilian, with a carefully crafted setting: two elements that the television series took up and that a stage adaptation must necessarily face. Quirino's presentation insists on the deep cultural and linguistic knowledge of Sicily that the director and the lead bring to the stage.

The world of Vigata

Around the inspector there is a small community of characters: his deputy Mimì Augello, Inspector Fazio, the officer Catarella with his mangled language, the medical examiner Pasquano, the cook Adelina, the girlfriend from Genoa Livia. The theater has not yet said which of these characters will take the stage at Quirino.

From Rai 1 to the stage: the television series

Il commissario Montalbano was a television series produced from 1999 to 2021 by Palomar for Rai, with Luca Zingaretti in the lead role: 37 episodes in 15 seasons, each shot as a TV movie.

An international success

The first three seasons aired on Rai 2. From 2002 the series moved to Rai 1, becoming the most watched on the contemporary Italian television scene. Broadcast in more than 20 countries, in 2016 it ranked among the 10 most watched programs in the United Kingdom.

The original cast

Alongside Zingaretti were Cesare Bocci as Mimì Augello, Peppino Mazzotta as Fazio, Angelo Russo as Catarella. Livia had several faces, up to Sonia Bergamasco. The recurring cast also included Pippo Pattavina, the elderly Principal Burgio: the same actor who at Quirino, the week before Montalbano, is Leone Gala in Pirandello's The Rules of the Game.

The inevitable comparison

For the public the face of Montalbano is Zingaretti's. The theater chooses a different path, with an actor from Palermo trained in the theater, and promises an authentic, rooted and natural Montalbano: the comparison with television will be one of the themes of the evening, but the show does not present itself as a copy of it.

Who Vincenzo Pirrotta is: biography

Vincenzo Pirrotta was born in Palermo on February 6, 1971. An actor and director trained at the school of the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico, he has worked with the leading directors of Italian theater and in film with Mario Martone, Matteo Rovere, Roberto Andò and Marco Bellocchio.

Research on traditions

Since 1996 Pirrotta has been conducting research on Sicilian folk traditions, grafting archaic practices onto experimental theater. He founded the Esperidio company, of which he is artistic director, and for which he has written and directed shows such as N'Gnanzo'ù, Malaluna, Sacre-Stie and La ballata delle balàte.

The big stages

His shows include Eumenidi for the 2004 Venice Biennale and the Teatro Stabile di Brescia, Sagra del signore della nave for the Teatro di Roma, U ciclopu, Terra Matta and Diceria dell'untore for the Stabile di Catania, Filottete for the Union of the Theaters of Europe, Donne al parlamento for the cycle of classical shows at the Greek Theater of Syracuse, Clitennestra and Macbeth, una magarìa for the Stabili of Palermo and Catania. His works have been hosted in France, Belgium, Spain, Greece, Germany, Portugal, Malta, England and Montenegro.

Opera

In musical theater he has collaborated with the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and the San Carlo in Naples. He directed The Marriage of Figaro at the Teatro Manoel in Malta, the Carmen that in 2012 opened the season of the Massimo Bellini in Catania and Verdi's Attila in December 2014.

Cinema

In film he was among the leads of Prove per una tragedia siciliana by John Turturro and Roman Paska, and acted in Noi credevamo by Mario Martone, Il primo re by Matteo Rovere, Una storia senza nome by Roberto Andò and Il traditore by Marco Bellocchio. In 2022 he directed the film Spaccaossa. Among his most recent titles are Duse, L'abbaglio and the series The Bad Guy.

Awards

He received the Le maschere del teatro italiano prize as best supporting actor for Shakespeare's The Tempest directed by Roberto Andò and, in 2011, for best innovation show with Diceria dell'untore. In 2010 he received the Premio Domenico Danzuso and in 2006 the Premio Internazionale Sebastiano Addamo for Eumenidi.

Guglielmo Ferro, the director

Guglielmo Ferro, born in Catania on October 30, 1965, son of Turi Ferro and Ida Carrara, is the artistic director of Teatro Quirino Vittorio Gassman and directs Il commissario Montalbano.

His training

The son of artists, he has frequented the theater since childhood with his parents. He studies literature at university and takes training courses with Josef Svoboda for set design and with Peter Brook for directing. He begins as an assistant to Mario Missiroli, Lamberto Puggelli, Sandro Sequi and Antonio Calenda.

Drama and opera

He has worked in opera at the Arena di Verona, the Massimo Bellini in Catania and the Teatro dell'Opera in Trieste. In drama he has worked, among others, with Turi Ferro, Ugo Tognazzi, Massimo Dapporto, Pupella Maggio, Arturo Brachetti, Lina Sastri, Remo Girone, Eleonora Giorgi, Giulio Brogi, Ornella Muti, Mario Scaccia, Moni Ovadia and Giuseppe Zeno.

A Sicilian for Montalbano

Quirino's presentation stresses that the director brings with him a deep cultural and linguistic knowledge of Sicily, the land that is the very soul of the character. Director and lead are both Sicilian, one from Catania and one from Palermo: a declared choice, for a Montalbano who speaks with the right voice.

A curiosity about Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta at Teatro Quirino, February 16 to 28, 2027

The most surprising curiosity is that Montalbano had never been on stage. A character born from a writer who was first of all a man of the theater, the director of more than 100 shows, a directing teacher at the National Academy of Dramatic Art, reached the stage only years after the death of his author, who died in Rome on July 17, 2019. Quirino presents the show precisely as a first, and the detail says a lot about the strength of the television series, which for more than 20 years took up all the space.

The second curiosity is about Luca Zingaretti, the television Montalbano. He had been a student of Camilleri at the National Academy of Dramatic Art, where the writer taught directing. The first interpreter of the inspector was therefore a student of his creator. The new one, Vincenzo Pirrotta, comes instead from the school of the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico in Syracuse and from research theater on Sicilian traditions.

Third curiosity: Camilleri and Pirandello were related. The writer's paternal grandmother, Carolina Morello, was a first cousin of Luigi Pirandello, and Camilleri, as a director, staged mostly Pirandello dramas. At Quirino, where The Rules of the Game is on the week before, the two authors pass the baton a few days apart.

Teatro Quirino, a production house

Teatro Quirino is a horseshoe-shaped hall with two balconies and a gallery, with 852 seats, in the Trevi district. Since 2015 it has been run by Quirino srl, with the artistic direction of Guglielmo Ferro himself, and it is also a production center.

The origins

The first Quirino, from 1871, was a wooden theater commissioned by Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra within the grounds of Palazzo Sciarra, designed by Giulio De Angelis with Francesco Marra. According to tradition it was built in a single day. In 1882 it was dismantled to open a street between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain and rebuilt in masonry a little farther on, in a horseshoe shape, with neoclassical cast-iron columns.

The 1900s

In 1914 Marcello Piacentini added the third tier of boxes and the retractable roof. In 1954 he returned for a radical remodeling, with the cantilevered stands and the canopy still visible at the entrance. The theater reopened on October 13, 1955. The venue's profile is on the page about Teatro Quirino.

A theater that produces

Il commissario Montalbano is an in-house production: Quirino does not just host it, it wanted it and financed it together with the Centro Teatrale Bresciano. It is a sign of a theater that, under Ferro's direction, invests in its own titles.

Something nobody tells you about Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta at Teatro Quirino, February 16 to 28, 2027

What nobody says is that the director of the show is also the artistic director of the theater that produces it. Guglielmo Ferro directs a title that his Quirino chose to finance at a difficult time for the sector, and that the producers themselves call ambitious economically. For the Rome audience this means that this Montalbano is the flagship project of Quirino's season, not a passing stop. And flagship runs are usually looked after down to the smallest detail.

The second thing is about the director's father. Turi Ferro was one of the great performers of Sicilian theater, from dialect companies to international stages, with Verga, Pirandello, Sciascia and Shakespeare. The son brings to the stage a Camilleri character, Camilleri being a relative of Pirandello: a theatrical genealogy that spans three generations.

Third thing: the times. At the moment the theater has not published the schedule of the individual performances. Those who want to go have to wait for the publication or ask the remote ticket office. Considering that this is the first stage adaptation of such a popular character, in our view it is wise to move as soon as the schedule is online.

How to get to Teatro Quirino

Teatro Quirino, at Via delle Vergini 7, is in the Trevi district between Via del Corso and the Trevi Fountain, in the historic center. It can be reached on foot from the Barberini and Spagna stops on Metro Line A.

By Metro Line A

From Barberini you walk down Via del Tritone toward Via del Corso, then at the level of the Trevi Fountain you enter the little streets of the district until Via delle Vergini. From Spagna you cross the Tridente to Via del Corso: a few minutes more, on flat streets.

By bus

Many lines run along Via del Tritone and Via del Corso or stop around Piazza Venezia: the Atac route planner shows the best combination in real time.

By car and taxi

The historic center is a limited traffic zone: leave the car outside the ZTL. After the evening shows a taxi is the most convenient solution. The entrance of Via delle Vergini is easy to name.

The advice I give you for seeing Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta at Teatro Quirino, February 16 to 28, 2027

My advice is to go without looking for Zingaretti. The theater presents this Montalbano as a new organism, born from the interweaving of several stories and entrusted to an actor with a different history, made of research theater, Greek tragedy and Sicilian folk traditions. In our view those who enter the hall expecting the television episode live risk missing what the show promises: a portrait of the man more than of the investigator.

The second piece of advice is to reread a Camilleri story before going. The show interweaves several short stories, and the language of the stories, Italian mixed with Sicilian, is half the pleasure: having it in your ear helps you enjoy the jokes.

Third piece of advice: combine the evening with The Rules of the Game, on at Quirino from February 9 to 14 with Pippo Pattavina, the Principal Burgio of the television series. Two weeks, two related Sicilian authors, an actor who acts as a bridge: for those staying in Rome in February it is a small theater itinerary put together with two tickets.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely mentioned

It is well known that Andrea Camilleri reached great fame late in life, in the mid-1990s, precisely with Montalbano. It is less remembered that before that he had been for decades a man of theater and television, and that his Roman career begins very early: in 1949 he was admitted to the National Academy of Dramatic Art as the only directing student of that year, and from then on he lived in Rome.

A second rarely cited fact is about a first. Camilleri was the first to bring Samuel Beckett to Italy: in 1958 he staged Endgame at the Teatro dei Satiri in Rome, and later made a television version of it with Adolfo Celi and Renato Rascel. He also staged Ionesco, Adamov, Strindberg and Eliot. The creator of Montalbano, before becoming a crime writer with millions of copies, was an avant-garde director in a small Roman hall.

Finally, a fact about the spread of the novels. Camilleri's output had an uninterrupted pace of publication for 25 years, until his death, with translations into at least 30 languages and more than 20 million copies sold. Theater comes last, but it arrives with an already immense audience.

The Trevi district around Quirino

Teatro Quirino is in the Trevi district, between Via del Corso and the Quirinal hill: the Trevi Fountain, the Quirinal Palace, Piazza Colonna and Galleria Alberto Sordi are a few minutes away on foot.

The Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is a few dozen meters from the entrance: the first Quirino, in 1871, reached right up to the basin. Across from it is the church of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi.

The Quirinal

Going up you reach the square of the Quirinal Palace and Scuderie del Quirinale, home of major exhibitions: a good plan for the afternoon before an evening show.

Via del Corso

Going down toward Via del Corso you pass Palazzo Sciarra and reach Piazza Colonna, with the column of Marcus Aurelius, and Galleria Alberto Sordi.

The right photo to take at Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta at Teatro Quirino, February 16 to 28, 2027

The right photo is taken at the entrance, under Piacentini's canopy, with the show poster and the face of Vincenzo Pirrotta. For a title that the theater presents as Montalbano's first time on stage, it is an image that counts as a document: in a few years it will be the photograph of the Rome debut of a character everyone knows from television.

No photos in the hall during the show. The presentation speaks of bodies, breath, silences and light: these are exactly the elements that a flash or a lit phone screen wipe out for those around you. Before the start, if the staff allows it, one shot of the horseshoe hall from the balcony, without flash.

The second photo is taken at the Trevi Fountain, on the way out of a late February evening show: the crowd is thinner than by day and the artificial light on the facade of Palazzo Poli gives a different image, more theatrical.

Some important events that happened here in history

The history of Teatro Quirino is that of a building that has changed shape many times without changing its name. In 1871 Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra has a wooden theater built within the grounds of Palazzo Sciarra, designed by Giulio De Angelis and Francesco Marra: Pulcinella shows and operettas are staged. In 1882 the theater is dismantled for the opening of a street and rebuilt in masonry, in a horseshoe shape.

In 1898 the interiors are enriched with velvet and gilded stucco and opera arrives: in June 1899 Antonino Palminteri conducts there Verdi's I Lombardi alla prima crociata and Puccini's Manon Lescaut. In 1914 Marcello Piacentini adds a third tier of boxes and the retractable roof. From 1946 the theater is run by the Ente Teatrale Italiano. In 1954 Piacentini redesigns it, and Quirino reopens on October 13, 1955.

In 2009 management passes to Gitiesse Artisti Riuniti of Geppy Gleijeses. From 2015 it passes to Quirino srl, with the artistic direction of Guglielmo Ferro. The theater becomes a production center and names the hall after Vittorio Gassman. In February 2027, for the first time, Inspector Montalbano takes to a stage, and he does it here.

Who has passed through Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta at Teatro Quirino, February 16 to 28, 2027

Through Teatro Quirino passed Prince Barberini Colonna di Sciarra, the architect Giulio De Angelis, Marcello Piacentini, the conductor Antonino Palminteri with Verdi and Puccini. The directors of the Ente Teatrale Italiano passed, Geppy Gleijeses and today Guglielmo Ferro, who here runs the theater and, for Montalbano, also directs the show.

Through Ferro ideally passes also his father, Turi Ferro, and with him a season of Sicilian theater that brought Verga, Pirandello and Sciascia to the stages of the world. Guglielmo has worked with his father and with many great names, from Ugo Tognazzi to Pupella Maggio, from Mario Scaccia to Lina Sastri: Quirino's Montalbano fits into a long personal history.

In the 2026/2027 season Quirino also hosts Six Characters in Search of an Author and Il viaggio di Francesco, and the week before Pippo Pattavina with The Rules of the Game. From February 16 to 28 pass Vincenzo Pirrotta, his cast, Micaela Miano with the adaptation and, through them, Salvo Montalbano, Vigata and the voice of Andrea Camilleri, the writer who lived in Rome for 70 years.

Andrea Camilleri and Rome

Andrea Camilleri, born in Porto Empedocle on September 6, 1925 and died in Rome on July 17, 2019, lived in Rome from 1949: the city where he trained as a director, taught and wrote the Montalbano novels.

The Academy

In 1949 he entered the National Academy of Dramatic Art, the only directing student of that year, and finished his studies there in 1952, alongside acting students such as Luigi Vannucchi and Franco Graziosi. Later he taught directing there: among his students was Luca Zingaretti.

The director

From then on he directed more than 100 works, mostly Pirandello dramas. He brought Beckett to Italy with Endgame at the Teatro dei Satiri in 1958 and staged Ionesco, Adamov, Strindberg, T. S. Eliot and the poems of Mayakovsky.

The writer

Fame came in the mid-1990s, with Montalbano. From then on he published without pause for 25 years, with translations into at least 30 languages and more than 20 million copies. Seeing his inspector debut in the theater in Rome, a few kilometers from the Academy where he studied and taught, has something natural about it.

Who to go with and practical information

Il commissario Montalbano is a show suited to a broad audience: Camilleri readers, viewers of the television series, fans of Sicilian theater.

With kids

The theater gives no age limits. The world of Montalbano contains crimes and adult themes, but is told with irony: in our view the show is suitable for kids from 12 or 13 years who know the character.

Accessibility

For access to the hall and seats for people with disabilities the point of reference is the Teatro Quirino ticket office. The official website has an accessibility page. Quirino is a historic theater remodeled several times: it is best to ask which sections can be reached without stairs.

Where to eat

In the Trevi district many places are designed for the fountain's tourists: better to walk a few streets away, toward the Pantheon, where kitchens stay open late even after the evening shows. Montalbano, a great lover of good food, would have liked the choice of a serious trattoria.

Frequently asked questions about Il commissario Montalbano at Quirino

When is Il commissario Montalbano on at Teatro Quirino?

Il commissario Montalbano with Vincenzo Pirrotta is on at Teatro Quirino in Rome from February 16 to 28, 2027. The schedule with the times of the individual performances is not yet published on the show page: it should be checked on the theater's website.

Who plays Montalbano on stage?

In Teatro Quirino's Il commissario Montalbano the lead is Vincenzo Pirrotta, an actor and director from Palermo born in 1971, a graduate of the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico. The theater lists the rest of the cast as being defined.

Is this Montalbano's first time on stage?

Il commissario Montalbano at Quirino is presented by the theater as the first stage adaptation of the character created by Andrea Camilleri: not an episodic adaptation, but a single show born from the interweaving of several stories, adapted by Micaela Miano.

Who directs it?

The direction of Il commissario Montalbano at Teatro Quirino is by Guglielmo Ferro, a director from Catania born in 1965, son of Turi Ferro and Ida Carrara, artistic director of Quirino itself. The show is produced by Quirino with the Centro Teatrale Bresciano.

How much do tickets cost?

The ticket prices for Il commissario Montalbano are published by Teatro Quirino in the tickets and subscriptions section of the official website. The remote ticket office answers at 06 6794585 Monday to Friday, from 10:00 to 13:00 and from 14:00 to 18:00.

How do you get to Teatro Quirino?

Teatro Quirino, at Via delle Vergini 7, is in the Trevi district, next to the Trevi Fountain. You get there on foot from the Barberini and Spagna stops on Metro Line A. Driving is discouraged because the historic center is a limited traffic zone.

Do you need to have seen the series to understand the show?

Quirino's Il commissario Montalbano does not require knowing the television series: according to the presentation it is an autonomous dramaturgical organism, centered on the man more than on the individual cases. Those who know Camilleri's stories will however catch the references.

Final advice on Il commissario Montalbano at Quirino

One of the most beloved characters of recent Italian fiction, on stage for the first time, with an actor from Palermo raised between Greek tragedy and folk traditions and a director from Catania, the son of Turi Ferro, in a theater that decided to produce it in-house. My advice is to keep an eye on Quirino's page until the schedule comes out, to book as soon as possible, to leave the memory of television at home and to pair it, if the trip allows, with The Rules of the Game from the week before: from Pirandello to Camilleri the step is short, and at Quirino this year it is taken on foot.

Article written by the editorial team of Tour Leader Pro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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