Amazon Theatre
Encyclopedia
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
located in the heart of Manaus
Manaus
Manaus is a city in Brazil, the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is situated at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. It is the most populous city of Amazonas, according to the statistics of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and is a popular ecotourist destination....
, inside the Amazon Rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. It is the location of the annual Festival Amazonas de Ópera
Festival Amazonas de Ópera
The Festival Amazonas de Ópera is an annual festival of opera presented in the Amazon Theatre in Manaus, Brazil.-External links:*...
(Amazonas Opera Festival) held in April.
It was built during the Belle Époque
Belle Époque
The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque was a period in European social history that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, it was a period characterised by optimism and new technological and medical...
at a time when fortunes were made in the rubber boom
Rubber boom
The rubber boom was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related with the extraction and commercialization of rubber...
. Construction of the Amazon Theater was first proposed in 1881 by a member of the House of Representatives, Antonio Jose Fernandes Júnior, the idea being to construct a jewel in the heart of the Amazonian forest and to make Manaus one of the great centers of civilization.
In the following year the State legislature approved some limited financing, but this was considered insufficient. In 1882, the president of the Province, Jose Lustosa Paranaguá, approved a larger budget and initiated a competition for the presentation of plans. The chosen project was made by the Gabinete Português de Engenharia e Arquitectura, an engineering and architecture office from Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, in 1883. By 1884, construction was ready to begin under the Italian architect Celestial Sacardim who planned for the theatre in the Renaissance style
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...
to be state of the art and to include electric lighting.
Work proceeded slowly over the following fifteen years with some stops and re-starts from 1885 to 1892. Roofing tiles came from Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
while, from Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, came furniture and furnishings in the style of Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
, much from the Koch Fréres company. From Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
came Carrarra marble for the stairs, statues, and columns. Steel walls were ordered from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The theatre has 198 chandeliers, including 32 of Murano
Murano
Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about 1.5 km north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 . It is famous for its glass making, particularly lampworking...
glass. The curtain, with its painting the "Meeting of the Waters" was originally created in Paris by Crispim do Amaral, depicts the junction of the Rio Negro and the Solimões
Solimões
Solimões is the name often given to early stretches of the Amazon River from the border of Brazil and Peru to its confluence with the Rio Negro.Further upstream from the border, the name of the river seems to depend on the speaker...
to form the Amazon. On the outside of the building, the dome is covered with 36,000 decorated ceramic tiles painted in the colors of the national flag.
Work recommenced in 1893. By 1895, when the masonry work and external was completed, the decoration of the interior, and the installation of electric lighting, could begin more rapidly. The Italian Domenico de Angelis painted the beautiful panels that decorate the ceilings of the auditorium and of the audience chamber. However, even after its inauguration and first public presentations, two more years would pass before the building was finally completed, a project taking seventeen years in all.
The theatre was inaugurated on 31 December 1896, with the first performance occurring on 7 January 1897 with the Italian opera, La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
, by Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian composer, largely of operas.-Biography:Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.Two years...
.
It has been restored four times, most recently in 1929, 1974 and between 1988 and 1990, and it currently has 701 seats covered with red velvet.
It has been noted that, as of 2001, opera is once again flourishing at the theatre:
- "Until four years ago, there had been no opera here for almost 90 years. Then a new governor of Amazonas was elected, a populist called Amazonino Mendes, who decided that his city should have a top-quality professional orchestra, choir and corps de ballet. He set aside about 1.5 million pounds a year, an enormous amount in a state where half the population is illiterate and living on about 60 pounds a month.
- As a result Manaus has become the focus of a most unlikely musical migration. Some of Eastern Europe's best musicians have been tempted from such orchestras as the KirovKirov-People:*Nikolay Kirov , Soviet track and field athlete*Sergey Kirov , Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet communist-Things named after Sergey Kirov:*Kirov Plant, St. Petersburg, Russia...
to Manaus with the lure of much higher wages. In fact, 39 of the 54-member Amazon Philharmonic orchestra are from BulgariaBulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, BelarusBelarusBelarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Even the archivist hails from Belarus".
Today, the theatre is also the location for an annual film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
.
In popular culture
The theatre is featured in the film FitzcarraldoFitzcarraldo
Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known as Fitzcarraldo in Peru, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber...
directed by the German director Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
in 1982. At the beginning of the film, the opera-obsessed character Brian Sweeney "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald makes his way to the opera house to hear Enrico Caruso sing in Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Ernani
Ernani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...
. He arrives right at the end of the opera and there are scenes of the interior of house. While it is believed that the house was constructed to attract Caruso to perform at its opening, there is some doubt that he actually did perform there.
It is featured twice in novels by Eva Ibbotson
Eva Ibbotson
Eva Ibbotson was an Austrian-born British novelist, known for her award-winning children's books as well as her novels for adults - several of which have been successfully reissued for the young adult readership in recent years.-Personal life:Eva Ibbotson was born Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner...
: Journey to the River Sea
Journey to the River Sea
Journey to the River Sea is an adventure novel written by Eva Ibbotson in an attempt to share her vision of the Amazon River. It is set mainly in Brazil early in the twentieth century and was first published in 2001.- Maia :...
and A Company of Swans
A Company of Swans
A Company of Swans is a historical romance novel published in 1985 by Eva Ibbotson. The book is dedicated to Patricia Veryan. Critically well received, the young adult novel is starting to be obliquely referred to in reviews, as reviewers attempt to compliment a new work by comparing it to another,...
. Both are adventure stories set principally in the city of Manaus
Manaus
Manaus is a city in Brazil, the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is situated at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. It is the most populous city of Amazonas, according to the statistics of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and is a popular ecotourist destination....
(where the theatre is situated) and surroundings in 1912. In the former (children's) book a visiting acting group performs the play, Little Lord Fauntleroy
Little Lord Fauntleroy
Little Lord Fauntleroy is the first children's novel written by English playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was originally published as a serial in the St. Nicholas Magazine between November 1885 and October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's in 1886...
at the theatre, which is briefly described. In the latter (young adult) novel a visiting ballet troupe performs Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
, Giselle
Giselle
Giselle is a ballet in two acts with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, music by Adolphe Adam, and choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The librettist took his inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine...
, The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
and La Fille Mal Gardee
La Fille Mal Gardée
La Fille mal gardée is a comic ballet presented in two acts, inspired by Pierre-Antoine Baudouin's 1789 painting, La réprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère...
at the theatre.
Author and naturalist Sy Montgomery gives a historical account of the building of the theater in her 2001 book, "Journey of the Pink Dolphins".
It is featured in the 2011 novel "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett.