Arriaga Theatre
Bilbao's neo-Baroque municipal theatre of 1890, staging drama, dance, opera and concerts.
The Arriaga stands at the edge of Bilbao's old quarter beside the Nervion, on the site of an earlier theatre destroyed by fire. Designed by the municipal architect Joaquin Rucoba in a neo-Baroque manner indebted to the Paris Opera, it opened in 1890 as the Teatro Nuevo and was renamed in 1902 after the Bilbao-born composer Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga. Fire gutted the building in 1914; Federico Ugalde rebuilt it, and it reopened in 1919 with much of the original decorative scheme restored.
Flooding in 1983 left the theatre badly damaged and it closed for restoration, reopening in 1986 as a municipal house. The main auditorium seats around 1,200 on stalls and four horseshoe tiers under a painted ceiling, with a smaller studio space for chamber work. Programming runs from September to June and mixes drama in Spanish and Basque, dance, lyric theatre, lieder recitals, family shows and concerts, including performances by the Bilbao municipal band.
Highlights
- Neo-Baroque facade of 1890 by Joaquin Rucoba
- Horseshoe auditorium of about 1,200 seats on four tiers
- Named after the Bilbao composer Juan Crisostomo de Arriaga
- Season of drama, dance and lieder from September to June
