After 25 years of restoration, the 19th century Teatro Massimo reopened its doors in May 1997 to much fanfare. In its early days, the theatre was one of the largest in Europe with a capacity for 3,200 spectators. It was an appropriately grand venue for the great tenor Enrico Caruso, whose career took off here. Today's regulations allow only about 1,350 in the audience, but the Massimo is no less beloved. In Europe, Teatro Massimo represents the high point of the typical Italian-style theatre. The atmosphere of the theatre, with its color scheme of sumptuous gold and red, is surpassed only by its sight lines and acoustics, to this day considered among the best in all of Europe. Though its history is full of political scandals and corruption - mostly surrounding the original construction in the late 1800s and its re-construction in the 1970s and 80s - Teatro Massimo bears witness to Palermo's progressive artistic rehabilitation.