Amazon Theatre (Teatro Amazonas)
Belle Epoque opera house of the rubber boom, home of the Amazonas Philharmonic and the opera festival.
Built during the Amazon rubber boom, the Amazon Theatre was inaugurated on 31 December 1896 after fifteen years of work. Plans came from the Gabinete Português de Engenharia e Arquitectura in Lisbon, and materials were shipped upriver from Europe: Carrara marble for the staircases, Alsatian ironwork, French furniture and 36,000 glazed ceramic tiles that form the ribbed dome in the colours of the Brazilian flag. The eclectic Renaissance Revival exterior faces the Largo de São Sebastião, whose wave-patterned paving echoes the meeting of the Negro and Solimões rivers.
The auditorium seats 684 across the stalls and three horseshoe balconies, beneath a ceiling of four painted panels representing music, dance, tragedy and opera, executed in Paris by Domenico de Angelis. The adjoining Salão Nobre retains its original chandeliers, marquetry floor and painted ceiling. The theatre is the home of the Amazonas Philharmonic and hosts the annual Festival Amazonas de Ópera each autumn, while guided tours run through the auditorium, the Salão Nobre and a small museum of costumes and playbills.
Highlights
- Ribbed dome of 36,000 tiles in the colours of the Brazilian flag
- Ceiling panels by Domenico de Angelis painted in Paris
- Salão Nobre with original 19th-century chandeliers and furniture
- Resident Amazonas Philharmonic and the Festival Amazonas de Ópera
