Teatro Amazonas, Opera house in Manaus, Brazil
The Amazon Theatre is an opera house on Largo de São Sebastião in central Manaus, Brazil. Its pink and white facade has five arched openings at ground level, six columns across a balcony and a pediment with a sculpted crest. A dome covered in yellow, green and blue tiles crowns the roof.
Construction started in 1881 during the rubber boom and continued until the opening in 1896. Materials from across Europe were shipped up the Amazon, including iron from Scotland and marble from Italy.
The stage curtain, painted in Paris by Crispim do Amaral, shows the Meeting of the Waters, where the Rio Negro and Rio Solimões join. The Noble Salon, decorated by Italian Domenico de Angelis, has a ceiling painting, The Glorification of the Fine Arts in the Amazon, and a floor of 12,000 fitted wooden pieces where rubber barons held balls during performance intervals.
The Amazonas Philharmonic performs regularly at the theater and uses it as its main home. The space hosts the annual opera festival, which draws visitors from across Brazil.
A painted curtain above the stage shows the water goddess Iara at the meeting of the Rio Negro and Rio Solimões. The dome carries more than 36,000 ceramic tiles from Alsace in the colors of the Brazilian flag, laid after the proclamation of the republic.
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