Theatres of Brazil

his city at the top of the map of Brazil, had fewer than 100.000 inhabitants; between it end the Old World lay, the immense Atlantic Ocean. Yet at the end of the 19th century a large part of the inhabitants of Manaus used French for conversation in their salons, the English pound for their daily shopping, and ships for their long, slow voyages in search of European consumer goods and cultures.
At the peek of the cycle of rubber production, Manaus had the highest per capita income in Brazil; such was the prosperity that people sent clothing to Lisbon to be laundered and starched! This prosperity allowed Manaus to install a new form of public transports: open cars drawn by locomotives - and a system of electric street lighting.

Expensive works in accordance with modern theories of urbanism, contrasted with the usual two-storey houses with their terraces. As a results of such progress and sophistication, the city´s population realized in the late 19th century that a theatre was essential.

It foreign companies were to cross the ocean, if select national groups were to journey through the country, and if some of them were to arrive there, high up on the map of Brazil, then let them find a theatre which matched the reality of the region. Here, where newspapers were printed in French, English and Arabic, efforts began in 1881 to build "a temple sacred to opera" which would rival those of Europe. Two projects were presented: one, to cost 250 contos de réis, was by the Italian C. Sacardin, while the other, worth 500 contos de réis, came from the Lisbon Engineering Office, which had built Lisbon´s own Dona Maria II Nation Theatre. The more expensive project won.

Although the most costly materials could be imported, from anywhere in the world, although there were regular and direct shipping routes to Liverpool, Le Havre, Antwerp and New York - even so, the use of labour, raw materials artifacts and decorative items from abroad resulted in inevitable delays, and the foundation stone was laid only in 1884. At the same time the covetousness of the contractors and political trickery caused yet more delay; the work was interrupted from 1885 to 1892, with heavy onus to the Provincial Treasury. All this delay was made up for by beauty and care. Beauty spread throughout the theatre; care possessed the streets around, which were paved with cobblestones sat in latex. The noise of passing wheels was never to inconvenience the spectators.

Work started again at a great pace in 1892, and finished 4 years later in the government of Fileto Pires Ferreira, who symbolically opened the Theatre on the last day of 1896.
The multicoloured dome towers over the building, it was defined by the newspaper "Jornal do Amazonas" as "ungainly, deformed, monstrous, gaudy".

It may have been too bold, too modern for the end of the century, that dome; it was like the dome of a cathedral, yet it turned the Amazonas Theatre into something absolutely different from all other buildings, and at the same time caused almost uncontrollable outbursts of dissatisfaction. Not a few people suggested that it should be removed and workmen were sought to the job. On January 7th 1897, the Italian Lyric Company staged Ponchielli´s "La Gioconda", "the ladies wore long dresses, the gentlemen frock-coats and top hats".

The account at last showed that the Theatre, on an initial budget of 250 contos de réis, after seventeen years cost 20 million contos de réis. Due to the difficulties of importing fine materials, and the excessively high cost, the Amazonas Theatre can display an enviable collection of imitations of pictorial and cultural originals.

Thus stone and wood are replaced by stucco; apparently solid marble columns are far from solid, except at the base. The upper parts are of iron and concrete, covered with imitation marble. This art of imitation explains the enormous variety of different shades of marble in the Theatre; cement, stone and plaster are covered and become veneers, bull´s-eyes and balustrades.

Decadence set in with the arrival of yellow fever in 1902; competition from the rationalized rubber production of the Far East, which produced five times more then Brazil, made matters worse. The imposing Amazonas Theatre was used for political banquets, exhibitions by fakirs, carnival balls and film shows, and the international companies cancelled their performances. There was an exception: in 1912 a young cellist gave two performances. Heitor Villa-Lobos was his name. And afterwards came fashion shows, beauty competitions, indoor football in an improvised court, graduation balls; during the Second World War an American company set up a gasoline rubber deposit there.

In 1926, however, an initial rebuild took in the stalls, galleries, boxes, floors, works of art, doors and gates.

A further rebuild, in 1962, resulted in inclusion of the Amazonas Theatre by the National Theatre Service, with fifteen other theatres of historical value destined for preservation. On November 28th 1966, the Amazonas Theatre was put under a conservation order.

In 1974, restoration costing 25 million cruzeiros accounted for necessary details, preserving the original style of walls, seats, lighting, furnishing, curtains and mirrors. The last restoration, in 1990, involved 600 men under the guidance of thirty Brazilian and foreign specialists. The chairs in the stalls demanded 2,600 metres of French velvet, 480,000 brass nails, 8,500 buttons, and 2,100 metres of braid.

The Encyclopaedia Britannic, under Manaus, contains a very considerable amount of information about this grandiose Theatre. It is more than the glory of the past, than faith in the present or hope in the future; the Amazonas Theatre is an indelible mark of a time which everyone thought would last for ever.