Peter Pan by Bernstein at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, December 18 to 23, 2026

Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan plays at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, at Via del Viminale 51 on the corner of Via Agostino Depretis, from December 18 to 23, 2026: opening night on Friday, December 18, at 8 p.m., then Sunday, December 20, at 4:30 p.m. and Monday, December 21, Tuesday, December 22, and Wednesday, December 23, at 8 p.m. It is a new production by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and the first Italian staged performance of the music Bernstein wrote for James Matthew Barrie's play. To get there, take Metro A, Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera stop, or buses 70 and 71 on Via Depretis and lines H, 40, 60, 64, 70, 71, and 170 on Via Nazionale. Prices are published on the Teatro dell'Opera's official site, and tickets are bought on the venue's official site and at the theater box office. The show has surtitles in Italian and English.

Language: in Italian with English surtitles.

Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale at a glance: dates, times, cast

Five performances in six days, from the Friday before Christmas to the day before Christmas Eve, in a 2,000-seat hall that began as a movie theater in 1925. It is the Christmas title of the foundation's 2026/2027 season, and the most unusual: a text for the spoken theater, with songs and incidental music, entrusted to the Opera's orchestra and chorus.

The performance schedule

Friday, December 18, at 8 p.m. is opening night. On Sunday, December 20, the performance is an afternoon one, at 4:30 p.m., and it is the one I recommend to families. On Monday, December 21, Tuesday, December 22, and Wednesday, December 23, it repeats at 8 p.m. There is no performance on Saturday, December 19.

The billing

Manlio Benzi conducts. Direction and sets are by Luca Micheletti, who also signs the new rhythmic Italian version of the text. The chorus master is Ciro Visco, the costumes are by Anna Biagiotti, the lighting by Giuseppe Di Iorio, the choreographic movement by Fabrizio Angelini. The Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma play and sing.

Characters and performers

Peter is Roberto Latini. Luca Micheletti plays the double role of Hook and Mister Darling. Wendy is Jessica Ricci, who comes from Fabbrica, the Young Artist Program of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. The adult Wendy is Elena Bucci.

Language and surtitles

The show is spoken and sung in Italian, in Micheletti's translation, with surtitles in Italian and English. For an international audience in the city for the holidays it is a detail that makes a difference.

What Leonard Bernstein's Peter Pan is

Bernstein's Peter Pan is the adaptation of Barrie's play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which opened on Broadway on April 24, 1950, with music and song lyrics by Leonard Bernstein. It is not an opera in the strict sense of the term, nor is it the musical many people remember: it is a play with music, and for that very reason it lends itself to a strong theatrical reading.

Broadway, 1950

In the original production Peter was Jean Arthur, while Boris Karloff, the Frankenstein monster of the movies, took the double role of George Darling and Captain Hook. Wendy was Marcia Henderson. The orchestrations were by Trude Rittmann and Hershy Kay, and Benjamin Steinberg was on the podium. The show held the bill for 321 performances and closed on January 27, 1951.

A score left in the drawer

The project had begun as a full-fledged musical, and Bernstein had composed a complete score. On stage, however, only five songs made it, Who Am I?, Pirate's Song, Plank Round, Build My House, and Peter Peter, to suit the limited vocal abilities of the leads, who were actors before they were singers. The rest of the music stayed among the composer's papers.

Not to be confused with the other Peter Pan

There is another musical Peter Pan, from 1954, which should not be confused with this one. Bernstein's remained for a long time a curiosity for specialists, and its recent history is a story of recovery.

The recovered score: from Alexander Frey to the first complete performances

In 1998 the conductor Alexander Frey began searching Bernstein's archives for the music written for Peter Pan and not used on Broadway, and over seven years he recovered and restored almost an hour of it. A good part of that material still had to be orchestrated.

The recovered pages

Among the pages found are Hook's monologue, Captain Hook's Soliloquy, and the song Dream With Me, along with other vocal material, dance music, and orchestral interludes. The first recording of the complete score came out on disc in 2005, conducted by Frey, with Linda Eder as Wendy and the baritone Daniel Narducci as Hook.

From concert to stage

In September 2008 the complete score was performed in concert for the first time, with Frey on the podium of the Gulbenkian Orchestra: three evenings in Cascais, Portugal, with over 10,000 spectators in all and the dialogue adapted from Barrie's play by Nina Bernstein Simmons, the composer's daughter. The first staged production with the complete score came in December of the same year in Santa Barbara, California. In 2018 a new production, directed by Christopher Alden, played at the Fisher Center in the United States.

The musical number to wait for

If I have to name one moment, I name Hook's monologue. It is one of the pages left out in 1950, and it is entrusted to a performer who is both actor and baritone: the ideal combination for a number that is half song and half acting.

The story: Barrie, Wendy, and the boy who wouldn't grow up

The story is that of Barrie's play: Peter comes in through the window of the Darling children's room, takes Wendy and her brothers to Neverland, and confronts them with Captain Hook's pirates. The list of musical numbers in the score follows the journey step by step.

Act one, the nursery and the flight

After the prelude come Who Am I?, Peter's tears, the shadow dance, and the music of the flight to the island. It is the most domestic and tenderest part, built around the figure of Wendy.

Act two, pirates and the lagoon

The second act is the pirates' act: the pirates' song, the crocodile music, Wendy's entrance, Build My House, the lagoon, the battle, Peter Peter, Hook's poison, Tinker Bell falling ill and being saved, and the captain's monologue. It is the spectacular heart of the score.

Act three and the return

The third act opens with the crew's dance and the Plank Round, the canon on the gangplank, then the final clash and Dream With Me. An adult Wendy on stage, entrusted to Elena Bucci, suggests that the direction also looks at the story from the point of view of someone who has grown up.

Luca Micheletti, director, translator, Hook and Mister Darling

Luca Micheletti, born in Brescia in 1985, is an actor, theater director, and baritone: in this Peter Pan he signs the direction, sets, and Italian version and plays Hook and Mister Darling. It is the double role that on Broadway belonged to Boris Karloff, and that by tradition links the stern father to the pirate.

A theater family

Micheletti is a child of the stage across four generations: the Micheletti Zampieri family has roots in the popular theater of the late nineteenth century, and he is the youngest heir of the theater company I Guitti, of which he is resident director. He is the son of the actor Adolfo Micheletti and of the actress and director Nadia Buizza. He earned a degree in Letters and Theater Studies between Milan and Venice and a doctorate in Italian Studies at Sapienza in Rome.

Spoken theater

For the Teatro di Roma he acted in Koltès's trilogy in 2009 and in Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in 2011, which won him the Premio Ubu. He wrote and directed Le memorie di Ivan Karamazov for Umberto Orsini, played Molière's The Misanthrope directed by Andrée Ruth Shammah, winning the Premio Franco Enriquez, and in 2024 directed and starred in Sophocles's Ajax at the Greek Theater of Syracuse. He has also received the Premio Internazionale Pirandello.

Opera

After years of study with Mario Malagnini he began an opera career, debuting as Escamillo in Carmen in Cagliari. Since then he has sung at La Scala, the Metropolitan in New York, Covent Garden, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Arena di Verona, La Fenice, the Sydney Opera House, and the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, often conducted by Riccardo Muti: Don Giovanni, Figaro, Macbeth, Iago, Rigoletto, Marcello, Ford.

The link with Bernstein and with Rome

Bernstein is no stranger to him: in Genoa he directed and starred in the double bill La serva padrona and Trouble in Tahiti, singing Sam in Bernstein's one-act, and at the Carlo Felice he brought The Merry Widow in a new rhythmic Italian version. At the Rome Opera he has sung Marcello in La bohème, Escamillo, and Germont, and directed the world premiere of Silvia Colasanti's Ultimo viaggio di Sindbad.

Roberto Latini, a Roman Peter Pan

Roberto Latini, born in Rome in 1970, actor, director, and playwright, a two-time Premio Ubu winner for best actor, is the Peter of this production. Entrusting Peter to a great experimental-theater actor, and not to a boy, is the strongest and most debatable choice of the show, and the one that intrigues the most.

Training in Rome

After finishing school at the Liceo Tasso he graduated in 1992 from the Mulino di Fiora school directed by Perla Peragallo, and earned a degree at Sapienza with a thesis on Shakespeare. In 1998 he founded Fortebraccio Teatro with Ilaria Drago, the musician Gianluca Misiti, and the light designer Max Mugnai.

The voice and the microphone

His work is tied to the voice: the Radiovisioni project grew out of his experiences with Rai Radio 3 and brings microphones on stage, and the 2017 Cantico dei Cantici, built like a radio broadcast, won him his second Premio Ubu. The first had come for the Harlequin in The Servant of Two Masters directed by Antonio Latella.

Puppets, clowns, kids

His repertoire includes many characters who don't want to or can't grow up: Noosfera Lucignolo of 2010, the Mangiafoco inspired by Pinocchio, awarded best prose production at the Maschere del Teatro italiano in 2021, and in 2026 GattoVolpe. Peter Pan comes after this long familiarity with Collodi's world, and doesn't look like a casting accident.

Elena Bucci, Jessica Ricci, and the singing company

Elena Bucci, the adult Wendy, is a regular stage companion of Roberto Latini: with him she worked in Goldoni's Teatro comico at the Piccolo in Milan in 2018, in Mangiafoco in 2019, and in the 2021 Armata Brancaleone, where she was the lead. She is one of the former students of Leo de Berardinis whom Latini has wanted with him in his most recent shows.

A company that knows each other

Latini and Micheletti have crossed paths several times: Latini was Mephistopheles in the Faust Rapsodia directed by Micheletti at the Ravenna Festival, was on stage in the 2024 Ajax in Syracuse, and in 2025 Micheletti acted in Ànghelos, written and directed by Latini. The Roman Peter Pan thus comes from a group of actors used to working together.

Jessica Ricci and the Fabbrica project

Wendy is Jessica Ricci, a young artist from the Fabbrica project, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's program for singers at the start of their careers. Alongside two longtime actors, her Wendy brings an operatic voice to the stage.

Manlio Benzi on the podium

The orchestra is entrusted to Manlio Benzi. For a score born for spoken theater, with songs, dances, and incidental music, the conductor's work is above all one of balance between the pit and the spoken word.

A curiosity about Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, December 18 to 23, 2026

The tastiest curiosity concerns the double role. On Broadway, in 1950, Mister Darling and Captain Hook were the same actor, Boris Karloff, the man the movies had made famous as Frankenstein's creature. The father who sends the dog out to the yard and the pirate who wants Peter's hide had the same face, and the audience knew it. In Rome the tradition repeats: Hook and Mister Darling are Luca Micheletti.

There is, however, a difference that changes the meaning of the choice. Karloff was an actor, and the show's musical numbers were cut to five songs precisely because the leads didn't have the voices for a larger score. Micheletti is an actor and baritone with an international career, and can sing the pages that in 1950 stayed in the drawer, beginning with the captain's monologue that Alexander Frey found among Bernstein's papers. In a sense, in Rome the character of Hook finally receives the voice he was written for.

The second curiosity is one of calendar. Broadway's Peter Pan debuted in April, the Roman one falls in Christmas week, a few days from Swan Lake at the Costanzi, and effectively becomes the foundation's family show for the holidays.

The Teatro Nazionale: what the hall on Via del Viminale is like

The Teatro Nazionale was born in 1925 as the Supercinema, commissioned by the commendatore Urbano Rattazzi and designed by the architects Arnaldo Foschini and Attilio Spaccarelli with the engineer Giacomo Giobbe. It was set inside a preexisting building, at the corner of Via del Viminale and Via Depretis.

The hall

The hall measures 36 meters by 30 and originally held 2,000 500 seats between orchestra and galleries. The decoration is in Italian Liberty style, with gilded stucco, paintings, stone, and fabrics. From the start it had an orchestra pit, because the program alternated film with variety and avanspettacolo.

From movie house to theater

From the postwar period the hall was used only as a cinema. At the end of the 1990s the City of Rome acquired it and entrusted it to the Fondazione Teatro dell'Opera, which made it its second hall, a few steps from the Costanzi.

Why it suits this Peter Pan

The Nazionale usually hosts the foundation's more agile titles: ballets from the dance school, music-theater shows, contemporary operas. A Peter Pan that is a play with music, spoken and sung in Italian, finds here a more intimate dimension than at the Costanzi, where the spoken words would risk being lost. The general listing for the foundation is the one for the Rome Opera House.

Something nobody tells you about Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, December 18 to 23, 2026

What almost nobody says is that this is not a show for small children in the sense that cartoons are. Barrie's Peter Pan, before becoming a children's product, was a play about time, loss, and the price of growing up, and the Roman production seems to want to remind us. Two choices in the billing point to it.

The first is Peter. Roberto Latini is not a boy and doesn't pretend to be: he is an actor who for 30 years has worked on the voice and on characters suspended between childhood and the end, from Lucignolo to Mangiafoco. The second is Elena Bucci's adult Wendy, a character who, alongside Jessica Ricci's young Wendy, opens the story to the gaze of someone who has grown up and looks back.

The advice, then, is to choose the performance according to whom you bring. With kids from eight or nine up, used to listening, the show works and stays in the mind. With smaller children consider the length and the language, which is the Italian of an author's rhythmic version and not the simplified Italian of a school show. Adults on their own, instead, have the rare chance to hear pages of Bernstein that have never been staged in Italy.

Tickets for Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale

Tickets for Peter Pan are bought on the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's official site and at the foundation's box office, for the 2026/2027 season single tickets have been on sale since October 8, 2026. Prices by section are published on the pricing page of the official site.

Subscriptions

The foundation also offers a subscription devoted to the Teatro Nazionale productions and formulas such as Fantasia and Week End. Anyone planning to return to the Nazionale during the season, for example for the ballet Echoes or the opera Code: Unknown in the spring, would do well to take a look before buying the single ticket.

Young people and discounts

The theater has a discounts page and the Carta Giovani Opera. For a Christmas performance designed for young people too, it's the first thing to check.

Which performance to choose

The opening night on Friday the 18th has the charm of a debut. The Sunday afternoon is the most convenient for families. The performances on the 22nd and 23rd, right before the holidays, are generally the most in demand among those in town for Christmas: if you have fixed dates, buy early.

The tip I give you for visiting Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, December 18 to 23, 2026

The tip is clear-cut: go to the Sunday, December 20, 4:30 p.m. performance and build a whole afternoon in the neighborhood around the show. You come out of the theater around seven, with the Christmas lights on along Via Nazionale, and the evening is still entirely ahead of you.

Before the show, if you have two hours, go into Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, which is a few minutes' walk away, or take a stroll between the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli and the Baths of Diocletian. Arrive at the Nazionale half an hour early: the coat check gets crowded on holiday days, and umbrellas, bags, and helmets must be checked.

Once seated, look at the pit. The Nazionale has had one since 1925, designed for the variety shows that alternated with film: for Peter Pan the Teatro dell'Opera's orchestra and chorus play in it, in a score born to accompany actors. Keep an eye on the surtitles in the sung numbers, even though the language is Italian: Micheletti's rhythmic version is dense and some words get lost in the ensembles.

One last thing: read Barrie's plot beforehand, even just a summary. With kids, explaining in advance who Wendy, Hook, and the crocodile are changes the evening.

How to get to the Teatro Nazionale for Peter Pan

The Teatro Nazionale is at Via del Viminale 51, at the corner of Via Depretis, a few minutes' walk from the Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera stop on Metro A and from Termini station. It is one of the best-served halls in Rome.

By metro

Line A stops at Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera, in Piazza della Repubblica: from there you walk down toward the Viminale in a few minutes. Those arriving at Termini, where lines A and B intersect, can also walk.

By bus

On Via Depretis run the 70 and the 71, which stop practically in front of the theater. On Via Nazionale run lines H, 40, 60, 64, 70, 71, and 170. From Termini station many surface lines leave for the area.

By taxi

For the Costanzi the theater indicates a taxi service at the entrance with Radio Taxi 6645 and the possibility of booking the return ride during intermissions, for the Nazionale it's best to ask the hall staff. After the 8 p.m. performances, in Christmas week, booking the taxi is wiser than looking for one on the street.

By car

I advise against it. The area between Via Nazionale, the Viminale, and Termini is central and busy and the theater lists no parking of its own. If you're coming from outside Rome, leave the car at a park-and-ride along Metro A.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely mentioned

It is well known that Peter Pan is the boy who wouldn't grow up. Less often remembered is that, in Bernstein's version, the boy for decades remained without his music. Of the pages the composer had written for the 1950 show, five songs reached Broadway, and the rest stayed for almost half a century among the manuscripts.

The story of the recovery is recent and has the long pace of archival work. Alexander Frey begins searching in 1998, works when his other commitments allow, and over seven years finds and restores almost an hour of unpublished music, much of it still to be orchestrated. The record arrives in 2005, the first complete concert performance in 2008 in Portugal, the first complete staged production at the end of the same year in California.

Lined up, this chronology says one simple thing: the complete music of Bernstein's Peter Pan has little more than 20 years of public life, and in Italy it had never been seen in the theater. The Teatro Nazionale's first Italian staged performance therefore comes at a moment when the score is still a discovery even for the international public. Those who go to the Viminale in December hear music born in 1950 with the wonder reserved for novelties.

House rules and times for the evening at the Nazionale

The Teatro dell'Opera's rules apply in all its halls: umbrellas, hats, bags, helmets, cameras, and recording devices must be left at the coat check, and phones, photographs, and filming are forbidden in the hall. Refreshments are allowed only in the theater's bars and smoking is not permitted anywhere.

Late arrival

Once the show has begun, seats are not accessible. With an 8 p.m. performance in the thick of Christmas week, between traffic and shopping, allow a generous margin.

Dress

The foundation appreciates dark dress at opening galas and first performances, for the other performances it states no code. For the opening on December 18 adjust accordingly, for the Sunday afternoon with children, comfort comes first.

Lost property

For lost property the foundation lists the number 06 48160284. The complete rules are on the General Information page of the official site.

The right photo to take at Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, December 18 to 23, 2026

In the hall photographs are forbidden, with or without flash, and the rule must be respected: the right photo is taken before or after, and outside.

The first framing I recommend is the corner of Via del Viminale and Via Depretis, with the facade of the old Supercinema and the show's poster. It's a photo that tells the story of the hall: a 1925 cinema that today hosts the Italian staged premiere of a rediscovered Bernstein. Take it in the blue-hour light, around five on a December afternoon, when the signs come on and the sky isn't yet black.

The second photo is for those going to the 4:30 p.m. performance. On the way out, walk up to Piazza della Repubblica: the illuminated Fountain of the Naiads with the exedra behind it, in Christmas week, is one of the loveliest images of Umbertine Rome. With children, a photo in front of the fountain after Peter Pan becomes the memento of the day.

Inside the theater, before the lights go down and without flash, look at the ceiling and the gilded Liberty stucco: ask the hall staff if a photo is permitted in the foyer, and leave the hall alone.

Some important events that have happened here through history

The history of the Teatro Nazionale begins in 1925, when the Supercinema opened on Via del Viminale. The client was the commendatore Urbano Rattazzi, the design by the architects Arnaldo Foschini and Attilio Spaccarelli with the engineer Giacomo Giobbe. The hall was carved out of an already existing building: 36 meters by 30, 2,000 500 seats between orchestra and galleries, Liberty decoration with gilded stucco, paintings, stone, and fabrics.

In the 1920s and 1930s the program alternated films with variety and avanspettacolo, and for this reason the hall was born with an orchestra pit: a detail that a century later has allowed it to host live music again. From the postwar period the Supercinema became only a cinema, one of the many big screens of central Rome.

The turning point came at the end of the 1990s, when the City of Rome acquired the hall and entrusted it to the Fondazione Teatro dell'Opera. Since then the Nazionale has been the foundation's second home, a few steps from the Costanzi: it hosts the dance school's ballets, such as The Nutcracker, which in the 2026/2027 season precedes it between November and December, music-theater shows, and contemporary operas. Peter Pan, the first Italian staged performance, enters this history as one of the most unusual titles hosted on Via del Viminale.

Who has passed through Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome, December 18 to 23, 2026

Very different names have passed through the history of this Peter Pan. On Broadway, in 1950, Jean Arthur and Boris Karloff, the face of Frankenstein, with orchestrations by Trude Rittmann and Hershy Kay. In the recovery of the score, the conductor Alexander Frey, the singer Linda Eder, and the baritone Daniel Narducci, and then Nina Bernstein Simmons, the composer's daughter, who adapted the dialogue for the Cascais concert.

The Roman production adds to this story some of the most interesting names in Italian theater. Roberto Latini is Roman, raised between the Liceo Tasso, Perla Peragallo's school, and Sapienza, and returns to his city with one of the best-known characters of English theater. Luca Micheletti has already worked in Rome for the Teatro di Roma in his years in spoken theater and for the Opera as a singer and director: Marcello in La bohème, Escamillo, Germont, the direction of Colasanti's world premiere. Elena Bucci brings with her the legacy of Leo de Berardinis.

In the same months the Nazionale hosts other titles of the foundation: La vita nuda in October, the dance school's Nutcracker between November and December, and in spring Echoes and Code: Unknown. In the same week, at the Costanzi, there is Swan Lake.

Around the Teatro Nazionale: Viminale, Repubblica, and Monti

The Teatro Nazionale lies between Via del Viminale, Via Depretis, and Via Nazionale, a few minutes from Piazza della Repubblica, the Teatro Costanzi, and Termini station. It's a transit area, built after 1870 for the new capital, but within a 10-minute walk there is a great deal.

Repubblica and the Baths

Walking up toward Piazza della Repubblica you come to the Baths of Diocletian, the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, and the Octagonal Hall. A little farther, toward Termini, is Palazzo Massimo with the collections of the Museo Nazionale Romano.

Via Nazionale and Monti

Walking down Via Nazionale you reach the Palazzo delle Esposizioni and, farther down, the Monti district, with its narrow streets and evening life. It's the right direction for dinner after the show.

Santa Maria Maggiore

On the other side, crossing Via Cavour, you reach the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in a quarter of an hour. In Christmas week it's the most sensible stop before an evening performance.

Where to eat before and after Peter Pan

Around the Teatro Nazionale the offering is concentrated on Via Nazionale, on the streets of the Viminale, and, a little farther, in the Monti district. In the theater you may consume only at the internal bars: dinner has to be arranged outside.

Before the 8 p.m. performance

An early dinner, around 6:30, in the Viminale area or on Via Nazionale, lets you walk over without rushing. Alternatively, a light aperitivo and dinner after the show, but with a reservation.

After the Sunday performance

Coming out around seven, Monti is the natural choice: you walk down from Via Nazionale and find osterias, pizzerias, and wine bars. In Christmas week tables fill up: book ahead.

The criterion

I don't name places, because they change management more often than opera seasons. The criterion is always the same: skip the places with the menu translated into five languages on the door in the streets around Termini and push a few streets toward Monti.

Peter Pan with children and teenagers

Peter Pan is the season's title best suited to a first time at the opera with kids, provided you choose the right performance. The one on Sunday, December 20, at 4:30 p.m. is the most advisable.

The age

From eight or nine up, the show is easy to follow, partly because it is in Italian. For the youngest, the evening hours of the other performances and the nature of the show, which is author's theater more than animation, weigh against it.

Preparing them

Tell them the plot beforehand, explain that Hook and Mr. Darling are the same actor, and have them listen to a couple of Bernstein songs. Kids who arrive knowing what to expect enjoy it twice as much.

Discounts

Check the site for discounts and the Carta Giovani Opera before buying, and remember that the theater asks you to check bags and backpacks at the coat check.

Accessibility at the Teatro Nazionale

The show's page gives no specific information on accessible seating at the Teatro Nazionale: the right way is to contact the foundation's box office before buying. The contacts are 06 48160255 and 06 4817003, or the address ufficio.biglietteria@operaroma.it.

Explain your needs when booking: orchestra seats, companion, the most convenient entrance. The Nazionale's hall was born as a cinema, with orchestra and galleries: those with mobility difficulties should ask for an orchestra seat. The Italian surtitles also help those with hearing difficulties follow the sung numbers.

December in Rome and the program around Peter Pan

The Peter Pan performances fall in the busiest week of the year for the city, between December 18 and 23, when Rome fills with visitors for the holidays. The theater becomes a warm refuge on short and often rainy days.

The weather

Darkness comes early and the evenings are cool and damp. Bring a real coat and an umbrella, which you will have to leave at the coat check anyway.

The holidays in the city

In the same weeks the center fills with lights and nativity scenes, and the area between Repubblica and Santa Maria Maggiore is among the liveliest. For an idea of what to do, the guide to Christmas in Rome collects the season's events.

Music on the same nights

At the Costanzi the same foundation presents Swan Lake. Anyone who wants to spend two evenings at the Opera in the same week can combine ballet and Bernstein without changing neighborhoods.

Frequently asked questions about Bernstein's Peter Pan in Rome

When does Bernstein's Peter Pan play at the Teatro Nazionale?

Bernstein's Peter Pan plays at the Teatro Nazionale in Rome on Friday, December 18, 2026, at 8 p.m., Sunday, December 20, at 4:30 p.m., and Monday, December 21, Tuesday, December 22, and Wednesday, December 23, at 8 p.m. There is no performance on Saturday, December 19. It is a new production by the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma.

Where is the Teatro Nazionale in Rome?

The Teatro Nazionale is at Via del Viminale 51, at the corner of Via Agostino Depretis, a few minutes from the Teatro Costanzi. The nearest metro stop is Repubblica Teatro dell'Opera on Line A, buses 70 and 71 run on Via Depretis, lines H, 40, 60, 64, and 170 on Via Nazionale.

Who are the performers in Peter Pan at the Rome Opera?

In the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's Peter Pan, Peter is Roberto Latini, Luca Micheletti plays Hook and Mister Darling, Wendy is Jessica Ricci, and the adult Wendy is Elena Bucci. Manlio Benzi conducts, with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro dell'Opera, Micheletti also signs the direction, sets, and Italian version.

Is Bernstein's Peter Pan in Italian?

Yes, Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale is spoken and sung in Italian, in the new rhythmic version signed by Luca Micheletti. The show has surtitles in Italian and English, useful both for following the sung numbers and for the foreign audience in the city during the holidays.

Is Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale suitable for children?

Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale is suitable for kids from eight or nine up, especially at the Sunday, December 20, 4:30 p.m. performance. It is author's theater with music, performed by great actors, and not an animated show: it's best to tell the younger ones Barrie's plot beforehand.

Where do you buy tickets for Peter Pan at the Rome Opera?

Tickets for Peter Pan are bought on the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's official site and at the foundation's box office. For the 2026/2027 season single tickets have been on sale since October 8, 2026, prices are published on the pricing page of the official site.

Why does everyone talk about an Italian premiere?

Bernstein's Peter Pan at the Teatro Nazionale is the first Italian staged performance of the music Bernstein wrote in 1950 for Barrie's play. On Broadway only five songs were used, the complete score was recovered by Alexander Frey between 1998 and 2005.

The final tip on Peter Pan

Among the foundation's December titles, Peter Pan is the one I recommend without reservation to anyone who has already seen everything: an almost unknown Bernstein score, two actors like Latini and Micheletti, a 1925 hall that becomes a house of music again. Choose the Sunday afternoon if you're coming with kids, the opening night if you want the debut, and in any case book early, because Christmas week doesn't forgive latecomers.

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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