Teatro Municipal, Colonial theatre in Ouro Preto, Brazil
Teatro Municipal is a theater with stone walls, a triangular roof peak, and three floors for different seating levels including main floor, boxes, and upper galleries. Inside, visitors find Austrian furnishings in the noble box, wooden spiral staircases climbing to higher levels, and roughly 300 seats total.
Construction started in 1746 under architect João de Souza Lisboa and the building opened in 1770 with ceremonies in January and June. It was built during the region's mining boom when wealth allowed for ambitious public structures.
The venue served as a gathering place where operas and oratorios brought people together during colonial times. Performances here shaped the cultural life of the mining region and showed how much music and theater mattered to society.
The theater sits along a street where you can see the full front, and climbing the internal stairs gives access to all levels. Plan to move slowly through narrow passages and wear comfortable shoes for exploring the different floors.
The building holds a Guinness World Record as the oldest operating theater in the Americas and keeps its original structure intact. Several restorations have protected it without changing its core architectural features.
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