Teatro Amazonas or Amazon Theatre is an opera house located in Manaus,
in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. It was built during the heyday
of rubber trade using materials from all over the world, with furniture
from Paris, marble from Italy, and steel from England. On the outside of
the building, the dome was covered with 36,000 decorated ceramic tiles
painted in the colors of the Brazilian national flag.
The first performance was given on January 7, 1897, with the Italian
opera La Gioconda. The opera house was closed down soon after however
as the rubber trade declined and Manaus lost its main source of income.
There wasn’t a single performance in Teatro Amazonas for 90 years until
2001 when it reopened its doors.
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