here is little information as to the origin of Sabara´s Opera House. But the town´s population has always known that it arose from the enthusiasm and the efforts of some of the inhabitants, quite without official help.
When the gold-mining age went into decline, the Province of Minas Gerais went through a period of economical depression. Construction of the Opera House was perhaps a sort of lesson as to how the community might survive in adverse circumstances, and how the culture and art which had arisen in the mountains of Minas Gerais might be preserved.
The land belonged to the Standard-bearer Francisco da Costa Soares, who together with his partners saw his efforts rewarded on June 2nd 1819. Two plays, "Maria Teresa, a Imperatriz da Áustria" and "Zêlo d'Amor" opened the baroque theatre in the old town of Vila Real de Nossa Senhora da Conceição do Sabará. It was nearly perfect in its acoustics and better built than that of Vila Rica, put up 50 years before.
The acoustic properties left Emperor D. Pedro I in no doubt as to the discontent caused to many of the citizens by his visit in 1831. The people, liberal in their ideas, hoped to join the Constitutionalist Movement. The Emperor, understanding his political position to be precarious and in need of reinforcement, went to Sabará.
He was received in respectful silence by the nobles and commoners who filled the Theatre for the gala performance in his honour; he then heard, form the Imperial box, the hoped-for: "Long live the Emperor D. Pedro I", in accordance with the protocol. Silence. Indecision. Fans waved in the boxes, top hats shone in the stalls. In the near-perfect acoustics was heard the voice of Colonel Pedro Gomes Nogueira, together with Fr. Mariano de Souza Silvino the Constitutionalist leader: "So long as he respects the Constitution".
The next day the Emperor broke off his journey to Minas Gerais and went back to the Court.
Many years later, at the end of the century, abolitionist Bento Epaminondas put on a spectable in aid of the liberation of some slaves. At the end, he was provoked by an English director of the Cocais Mining Company. Epaminondas spoke out and occasioned a furious debate between those for and against slavery in the three tiers of seats; in the opinion of some historians fighting broke out.
It is said that nothing could prevent Sabará families from going all together to plays, no matter how long. Why not take everything from home? Children, slaves, pyjamas, food, nannies, mattresses, blankets, pillows, feeding-bottles. No sooner said than done. Coming home at cock-crow they would meet the neighbours on their way to the five o'clock Mass, the beginning of Sunday.
In its early days, the Theatre first colonized then politicized; as time went on it ended up in the hands of the Santa Casa de Sabará, a hospital, to which the owners little by little gave their shares.
Even in the 19th century the competition of the cinema was felt; it became the Cine-Theatre Borba Gato and went through days better forgotten. Perhaps it has forgotten indeed. In the '60s, of our own century, under the guidance of Luciano A. Pérret, the State government had it completely restored.
It was reopened in February 1970, with dance, theatre and song. Formerly in the hands of the municipality, it was put under the responsability of the Clovis Salgado Foundation, belonging to the State Government, until 1984. Since then, the old Opera House has returned to the population of the town, under the name of the Municipal Theatre of Sabará. Everything would be perfect in the Theatre had not lost, in 1982, one of its treasures: Georges Grimm's proscenium curtain. This was due to heavy rain and the general dilapidated state of the building. The curtain showed, in the foreground and in vibrant colours, one of Sabará's best-known and most picturesque corners: a wooden bridge with cross-struts built by the engineer Henrique Dumont, the father of Alberto Santos Dumont, later known as the Father of Aviation.