:: Maggio Musicale FestivalL :: Music has always had a fundamental role in the artistic life of Florence, where, at the end of the sixteenth century, the very first operas were performed, following the theory and practice of the Camerata dei Bardi. Today the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the centre of musical life in Florence, is based at Teatro Comunale, and produces the Maggio Musicale Festival - together with Bayreuth and Salzburg, the oldest, important European music festival - as well as its annual concert, opera and ballet seasons., Information If the festival takes up the months of May and June, the activity of the theatre goes on all year round, with its opera season, its concerts and ballets, and the summer concerts in the magnificent and suggestive framework of the Boboli Gardens