While my mom was in town, we decided to take in a tour of Buenos Aires' premier opera houses, the Teatro Colon.
Built with Italian, German and French influences, it was constructed to match the grandeur of the European opera houses of it's time. Completed in 1908, after 20 years of construction and during a period of great economic expansion in Argentina, the new theater replaced it's 51 year old predecessor of the same name. The auditorium has seating for 2,487 guests as well as standing room for 1,000 on the top balcony.
Between 2005 and 2010, the 97 years theater closed for extensive structural, aesthetic and modernization renovations.
The theatre is unique because it is considered one of only a handful which can claim to be a "production theater". This means everything required by the theater is done in-house (education, rehearsals, set design, costume design, wig design, etc). To house all of this, there is a huge 3 story deep underworld below the theater which stretches all the way under the 18 lane mega road that is Avenida 9 de Julio. Our tour didn't include a look at this area of the theater because it was currently closed to visitors due to ongoing renovations.
During our tour, the auditorium was mostly dark because they were holding a light rehearsal to test the scenery, sound and lights for a new show. We were restricted from taking any pictures of the inside of the auditorium so here are some from the internet.
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The hour long tour is offered daily for $15 (with some blackout dates). Spanish language tours are every 15 minutes (between 8-4) and English tours every hour (between 11-2).
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