'Romeo, Romeo, perchè stai quà?'

ROME was not built in a day. But Rome’s Globe theatre - the opening of which was hailed yesterday - was constructed in just three months on the orders of an Italian building magnate, put together by 150 workers and made entirely of wood.

The Silvano Toti-Globe, donated by Mr Toti to the city of Rome, is testament to the enduring love of Shakespeare in Italy. The bard set so many scenes in the country that the question of whether he travelled there is hotly debated.

The Rome Globe opens tonight with a production of Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet declares from the balcony - in the favoured Italian translation - "Romeo, Romeo, perch stai qu?"

"Modern theatre began with Shakespeare," said Rome’s mayor, Walter Veltroni. "It’s a return to the origins of theatre and it’s quite a beautiful building."

The city will invite companies from Britain to perform, he said - some small consolation for the Royal Shakespeare Company, perhaps, still looking for its own stage in London.

The theatre’s sudden construction, however, in the Villa Borghese gardens, has taken staff at London’s Globe Theatre by surprise. They first heard of the project when the plans were rolled out in the Italian media in June.

It took a quarter of a century for the London Globe to go from the vision of the actor Sam Wanamaker to a painstakingly faithful reproduction of a Shakespearean theatre in the round. It opened in 1997, built from hand-made bricks, Norfolk reeds and tons of traditional lime plastering. The Rome theatre is remarkably similar, but constructed from 600 cubic metres of Belgian oak.

It has raised suspicions, which could not be confirmed yesterday, that Mr Toti, a building contractor who made his family’s fortune in housing construction, simply lifted the Globe’s designs off a university website devoted to the London project.

"We have been trying to contact the project team without success," a spokesman for the London Globe said yesterday. "As far as we understand, the project team in Rome have made use of the reconstructions that are available on the Reading University web site," he said. "It looks very similar to ours."

There are other Globe theatres in Japan and the United States, he said, and no-one had to seek permission to build one, but "certainly people here would be interested to know" about the Rome project.

"I didn’t get the impression that we were feeling particularly miffed," he said. "I think a lot of people are feeling miffed on our behalf."

The British Council in Rome asked the city to involve the London theatre in the project, as did Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, when she visited the site. All the overtures were ignored until an invitation appeared for the Globe’s director to attend the opening ceremony in Rome. It was declined "due to other arrangements".

Any British reservations about the project, however, were lost in translation yesterday. The theatre seats 1,216 people and promises popular prices of 15 in the covered sections and 8 for standing room in the circular pit.

Shakespeare set a number of plays in Italy, including The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar. His plays are frequently staged in Rome, his works commonly taught in schools and the hometown of the Capulets and Montagues, Verona, is beseiged by tourists. Romeo and Juliet, directed by Gigi Proietti, will run for a trial three days.

Some Roman theatre pundits have questioned whether the new auditorium will not be a burden on the city’s finances. But classic settings in Rome, traditionally used for open-air theatre, such as the famous Roman Forum, have seen their use limited by fears for the buildings’ safety, and another venue is welcomed.

"In theatrical terms, it’s quite magic what comes out of this new theatre building. The actor feels really at home," Mr Proietti said yesterday.

He then marked the occasion by reciting a sonnet he had composed in the Roman dialect of Italian: "A hell of a new theatre we have built, it’s like a dream come true," it runs in a rough translation.

"Theatre lovers can enjoy all the works of the great poets of the past. The trees say in chorus: no disturbance here because the theatre is built of wood, just like us!"