Teatro Colon
The Teatro Colón (Columbus Theatre) is an opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Highlights
The present theatre, the second with that name, opened in 1908 after twenty years under construction. The auditorium is horseshoe-shaped, has 2,487 seats (slightly more than, say, the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England), standing room for 1,000 and a stage which is 20 m wide, 15 m high and 20 m deep. The acoustics are considered one of the best five acoustics in opera in the world.
The theatre is bounded by the extremely wide 9 de Julio Avenue (technically Cerrito Street), Libertad Street (the main entrance), Arturo Toscanini Street, and Tucumán Street. It is in the heart of the city on a site once occupied by Ferrocarril Oeste's Plaza Parque station.
Before the construction of the current Teatro Colón, opera performances were given in several theatres, of which the first Teatro Colón and the Teatro Opera were the most important. The principal company that performed at the Teatro Opera moved to the Teatro Colón in 1908. However, important companies also performed at the Teatro Politeama and the Teatro Coliseo which opened in 1907. For many years Argentina was a prosperous country with a booming economy, and the Teatro Colón was visited by the foremost singers and opera companies of the time, who would sometimes go on to other cities including Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
The Present Teatro Colón
The cornerstone of the present Teatro Colón was laid in 1889 under the direction of architect Francesco Tamburini and his pupil, Vittorio Meano, who designed a theatre in the Italian style on a scale and with amenities which matched those in Europe. However, delays followed due to financial difficulties, arguments regarding the location, the death of Tamburini in 1891, the murder of Meano in 1904 and the death of Angelo Ferrari, an Italian businessman who was the financing the new theatre. The building was finally completed in 1908 under the direction of the Belgian architect Julio Dormal who made some changes in the structure and left his mark in the French style of the decoration.
The theatre opened on 25 May 1908, Día de la Patria in Argentina, with a performance of Verdi's Aida and it quickly became a world-famous operatic venue rivaling La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in attracting most of the world's best opera singers and conductors.
Over the years, the Colón Theatre has hosted great composers like Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saëns and Arthur Honegger, conductors like Arturo Toscanini, Tullio Serafin, Ernest Ansermet, Thomas Beecham, Karl Böhm, Simon Rattle, stars of the Italian opera like Titta Ruffo, Amelita Galli-Curci, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Enrico Caruso, Giuseppe Borgatti, Claudia Muzio, Tito Schipa, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Maria Caniglia, Beniamino Gigli, Ebe Stignani, Luciano Pavarotti, Fiorenza Cossotto, Giuseppe Taddei, Carlo Bergonzi, Renato Bruson and Renata Scotto. International singers like Lily Pons, Miguel Fleta, Ninon Vallin, Georges Thill, Rosa Raisa, Gina Cigna, Zinka Milanov, Leonard Warren, Leyla Gencer, Victoria de los Ángeles, Fritz Wunderlich, Sena Jurinac, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Régine Crespin, Jon Vickers, Norman Treigle, Ingrid Bjoner, Irina Arkhipova, Teresa Berganza, Sherrill Milnes, Frederica von Stade, Beverly Sills, Alfredo Kraus, Plácido Domingo, Joan Sutherland, Birgit Nilsson, Montserrat Caballé, Martina Arroyo, James King, Christa Ludwig, Evelyn Lear, Elisabeth Grümmer, Waltraud Meier, Ghena Dimitrova, Thomas Stewart, Karita Mattila, Jose van Dam, Eva Marton, Jessye Norman and many others along with internationally renowned Argentinian opera singers Raúl Giménez, Hina Spani, Elena Suliotis, José Cura, Bernarda Fink, Marcelo Alvarez, Adelaida Negri, Angel Mattiello, Victor de Narké, Delia Rigal, Ana Maria Gonzalez, etc.
Before and specially during the war years, conductors Erich Kleiber, Felix Weingartner, Fritz Busch and Otto Klemperer developed the "German Season" with singers like Lauritz Melchior, Lotte Lehmann, Helen Traubel, Viorica Ursuleac, Kirsten Flagstad, Marjorie Lawrence, Hans Hotter,Set Svanholm, Max Lorenz, Astrid Varnay, Tiana Lemnitz, Anny Konetzni, Friedrich Schorr, Alexander Kipnis, Karin Branzell, Emmanuel List, Meta Seinemeyer rivaling the Metropolitan Opera season during those years.
Ballet stars - Anna Pavlova, Nijinsky, Alonso, Nureyev, Fonteyn, Baryshnikov, Plisetskaya, among others - performed at the Colón alongside Argentine dancers such as Julio Bocca, Paloma Herrera, Jorge Donn and classical instrumentalists from Arthur Rubinstein to Evgeny Kissin as the Argentinians Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Bruno Gelber and the Brazilian Nelson Freire.
Many popular Argentine stars have performed at the Theatre. They include Aníbal Troilo, Osvaldo Pugliese, Ástor Piazzolla, Susana Rinaldi, Osvaldo Piro, Leopoldo Federico, Rodolfo Mederos, Les Luthiers, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Mercedes Sosa.
Boasting excellent acoustics and modern stage areas, the theatre's interior design features a rich scarlet and gold decor. The cupola contains frescoes painted in 1966 by the renowned 20th-century artist Raúl Soldi during renovation work.
Teatro Colon | eTips Inc.
