Theatres of Brazil

nyone who goes into Rio de Janeiro's Municipal Theatre may find the figures involved difficult to imagine. The 1987-1990 restoration used, in carpets alone, an area of one and half times the Maracanã football field. Several tonnes of velvet. A tonne just for the proscenium curtain - 500 kilos on each side. The leather for the reupholstering of the seats is equivalent to 1,600 head of cattle. The numbers are not just curious. They show the extent of the work carried out by the Municipal Theatre Foundation for the 80th anniversary of the building, opened, in homage to Bastille Day, on July 14th 1909.

A group of specialists in restoration and documentation drew up and coordinated the execution of work which, sponsored by private and State enterprise, covered the whole building, inside and out.
Hydraulic installations, electric wiring, canopies, painting, decoration, ceilings, upholstery, lighting, mirrors, everything was carefully researched, analysed, restored and, where possible, improved.

Analysis and research took the specialists back to the Theatre's origins, to the ideals and insistence of comedy writer Arthur Azevedo and the dedication of the Mayor Francisco Pereira Passos, in whose mandate, in 1903 the competition for execution of the works was at last opened. The plan had been approved years earlier, but was shuffled from drawer to drawer and always postponed.

Seven projects were entered; two, identified by the names Isadora and Aquilla, drew. When the first of the 1,180 hardwood piles was driven, the name Aquilla proved to be engineer Francisco de Oliveira Passos, nephew to the Mayor; his collaborators were Antônio Raffin, Charles Peyreten, Emilio Bien and J. Personne, led by René Barba.

Two teams of workmen worked shifts day and night for the first year. The foundations were ready in just five months, and the cornerstone was placed at the angle formed by the avenida Central (today avenida Rio Branco) and the Beco Manoel de Carvalho, today a street with the same name.
Building was finished in 54 months, and used 6,779 metres of timber piles of Santa Catarina, 6,262,000 Kg of cement, 16,253 m3 of sand, 4,794,000 bricks, 8,699 m3 of granite, 3,419 m3 of crushed stone, 2,463,000 litres of lime, 1,669,000 Kg of steel, and, 1,545,000 Kg of marble. The total cost of the work was equivalent at the time to almost 2% of Brazil's national budget.

The Municipal Theatre was opened with a speech by poet Olavo Bilac, who delivered to the city of Rio de Janeiro "Its finest edifice, a splendour in marble and bronze". The elite of Brazil's capital, with President Nilo Peçanha at their head, were able to see the performance of two Brazilian operas, "Moema", by Delgado de Carvalho, and "Insônia", by Francisco Braga, also the comedy "Bonança", by Coelho Neto.
In its early days, the Municipal Theatre was much visited by companies from abroad - Italian, Portuguese, German, English, Latin-American and - the high point of all - French.
During the French season, the ladies, already demanding by nature, would go so far as to order new dress for each night.

The invitations were always accompanied by presents - a sample of French perfume, a box of face powder, a carefully folded handkerchief.

It fell to Réjane's company, from France, at the time considered the successor to Sarah Bernhardt, to register a foreign presence on the Theatre's stage, the day after the inauguration. In the following decades, there were alternate seasons with the companies of Louis Jouvet, Raoul Roulien, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, and with the Old Vic Company with Vivien Leigh, the San Carlo Theatre Company of Naples, John Gielgud and Irene Worth, Vittorio Gassman.

From the '40s on, the most active Brazilian Companies turned the Municipal Theatre into a school, where they could learn and teach how to act: Dulcina, Jayme Costa, Procópio Ferreira, Paschoal Carlos Magno, Bibi Ferreira, Henriette Morineau, Maria della Costa, Maria Fernanda, Tônia Celi-Autran, Cacilda Becker. A number of definitive workd of the Brazilian theatre had their first bights there: "Auto da Compadecida", "Morte e Vida Severina", "A Falecida". The history of music and dance, and particularly of opera, mingle with the history of the Municipal Theatre in an exchange of prestige beneficial to both. While it is true that talented but little-known artistes launched their Brazilian and international careers on this stage, it cannot be denied that names such as Nijinski, Isadora Duncan, Anna Pavlova, the Ópera de Paris Ballet, Paderewsky, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Rubinstein and Maria Callas raised its image to the skies.

In addition to all this, the Theatre in the old avenida Central has another glory to its name: it was the first theatre in Latin America, and one of the first in the world to put on "Swan Lake" complete, in 1959.
Among the more than 30 performances which followed, most of them by the Municipal Theatre's Corps de Ballet, outstanding were the Leningrad Ballet, the Finnish Ballet and the Ballet Stalinavski.

From the '30s on, the Municipal Theatre had its days of glory but also attacks on its integrity, as avenue for events not suited to its character: graduation ceremonies, congresses and, after 1932, carnival processions and balls, when the permissiveness of the occasion, was used to justify irreparable damage and loss. The "Assírio" restaurant in the cellar was at this time turned into a Theatre Museum. After the restoration of 1976-1978, events of this sort were outlawed, and matters took another course; the restaurant, too, returned to delight its customers.

Twenty-five years after inauguration, the Municipal Theatre no longer met the needs of a growing city; the acoustics were inadequate, likewise the ventilation and the cooling system.
The hall was rebuilt, 466 new seats were installed, the dead points disappeared, a system for firefighting was put in, water and ventilation problems were resolved, 23 telephones installed - and all this in three months, an impossibly short time for the age.

In 1941 came another reform, further acquisitions; replacement of the electric batteries, the lighting systems, of two lifts, new furnishings for the boxes of the President of the Republic and the Mayor (these days, of the Governor of the State), a new floor for galleries and gods, new seats. Yet however careful the work, little by little Oliveira Passos' original design lost its character. Abuse by responsible authority and the unconcern of the users brought the Theatre to the point where large-scale restoration was due.
From 1976 to 1978, Prof. Edson Motta directed the restoration of the artwork, and Wrobel Consultoria that of the engineering side.

Fourteen top-line dressing-rooms were built, also collective dressing-rooms - with lifts - for the corps de ballet, choir, orchestra and walk-on figures, who also had bathrooms and wardrobes. Automatic switchboards, restoration of the President's and Governor's boxes, remodeling of the orchestra pit, computerized illumination to a system designed and built in Belgium, restoration of wooden structures, floors, ironwork, doors, windows, lamps identical to the original ones - all this was done. And at last, what was hoped for and desired: the use of the Theatre for non-theatrical events was forbidden.

Even so, with the passage of time and eighty years of constant use, a new restoration was needed - the latest. Carpets, velvet, leather, paintwork, decoration, architecture: nothing was forgotten, much was regained.

If restorers could go further down than the foundations, perhaps we should find the remains of a caravel. Such was found by the construction workers, they say. For the land where the Municipal Theatre reigns supreme over the city of Rio de Janeiro was in former times beneath the sea.