Amazon Theatre

The Teatro Amazonas opened in 1896, paid for by rubber money at the point when Manaus controlled the world supply of latex and had more capital than it knew how to spend. Almost everything in it was imported and shipped up the Amazon: Italian marble and Carrara stairs, Alsatian roof tiles glazed in the colours of the Brazilian flag for the dome, French ironwork, Venetian chandeliers, English furniture. The painted ceiling in the auditorium shows the underside of the Eiffel Tower. Outside, the black and white paving of the square is laid in a wave pattern said to mark the meeting of the Negro and Solimoes rivers. The boom collapsed within two decades when seeds smuggled to Asia broke the monopoly, and the theatre spent much of the twentieth century closed.

History

A theatre was first proposed in 1881 by the local deputy Antonio José Fernandes Júnior, who imagined a jewel in the heart of the rainforest, and in 1882 the provincial president José Lustosa Paranaguá approved a budget and a design competition, won by the Gabinete Português de Engenharia e Arquitectura of Lisbon. Building began in 1884 under the Italian architect Celestial Sacardim and went slowly, with stops between 1885 and 1892; the masonry and exterior were finished by 1895, the theatre was inaugurated on 31 December 1896, and the first performance, Ponchielli's La Gioconda, was given on 7 January 1897 (Wikipedia, Amazon Theatre).

The main sights

• A dome of glazed tiles - thirty-six thousand of them in the national colours.
• Imported everything - marble, iron, chandeliers and furniture shipped upriver.
• The Eiffel Tower ceiling - the auditorium painted as if seen from beneath it.
• The wave-patterned square - paving marking the meeting of two rivers.

When to go

All year; April and May for the opera festival. Two hours.

What to expect

Tours are short, timed and sometimes cut when rehearsals run. The auditorium may be closed to visitors on performance days. English tours are limited. The square outside is lively at night but the surrounding centre is quiet after dark.

Nearby

The Meeting of the Waters is downstream; the Adolpho Lisboa market is by the port.

Key facts