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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

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.