Teatro Municipal, Opera house in Centro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Teatro Municipal is an opera house with eclectic architecture in Rio de Janeiro's downtown area. It features marble staircases, a central dome adorned with bronze and crystal elements, and holds roughly 2,361 spectators.
A 1894 campaign by playwright Artur Azevedo for a municipal company modelled on the Comédie-Française produced only an unenforced law. The theatre was built from 1905 on 1,180 wooden piles driven into groundwater, to a design by Francisco de Oliveira Passos with Albert Guilbert, inspired by the Paris Opéra. It opened on 14 July 1909 under President Nilo Peçanha, with 1,739 seats, raised to 2,205 in 1934 and later to 2,361.
The theatre's artistic bodies are the Symphony Orchestra, created in 1931, the Choir and the Ballet; the Maria Olenewa State Dance School is also linked to the house. Its early seasons featured only foreign companies, mainly Italian and French, before Brazilian ensembles took the stage.
The venue sits near Cinelândia metro station and is easy to reach by public transport. Visitors can join guided tours offered in multiple languages or attend regular performances throughout the year.
The theater's foyer is considered a high point of Brazilian decorative painting: Eliseu Visconti painted its ceiling, while Rodolfo Amoedo made eight paintings on the side walls of the rotundas and Henrique Bernardelli painted the rotunda ceilings. In the basement, the Assírius restaurant has Assyrian-style decor.
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