Teatro Amazonas

Manaus is a large city with a population of 2.2 million in the middle of the Amazon area. The town was founded in the year of 1669, but the best time of the town was at the end of the 19 th century and in the beginning of the early 20 th century, during the time of the Rubber Boom. Briefly : Hevea brasiliensis rubber- tree grew during this time only in the Amazon region and local Indians picked and used the raw rubber for a long time to turn their clothes and shoes more waterproof.



The purchasers and dealers of the raw rubber became super-rich at that time and as they wanted to get here a real Italian opera,so the Manaus Opera House was built mostly from expensive materials brought here mainly from Europe.

Such as roof tiles were brought from France, marble from Italy, chairs from England. The roof cupola consists of 36,000 ceramic details and the colors correspond to the Brazilian flag :/ / en.wikipedia.org / wiki / Teatro_Amazonashttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teatro_Amazonas

The construction of The Opera House was begun in 1884, and the house was opened in January 7, 1896 with the opera of "La Gioconda".

The rubber boom and all those huge profits ended at the beginning of the XX century, as already in the year of 1876 the rubber tree seeds were smuggled out and planted in new plantations in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, where production was cheaper. More reading in English - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_boom.

With the end of the boom the great period of time in Manaus was over as well, and during the next 90 years the theater decayed. In 2001 the Brazilian Government had the theatre to be restored and nowadays concerts take place here, and the Amazon Film Festivals. The theater is open to visitors, and with the help of the guide one can have a perfectly good half- an -hour overview of the history of theatre.


Amazonas Philharmonic Orchestra –during a day visit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazonas_Philharmonic








Venetian mirror.










A view from the balcony at the square in front of the theatre.


Sao Sebastiao Church.






A LEGO blocks model of The Opera House. The height is one meter.




30 thousand Lego pieces are actually quite a large number.






Amazonas Philharmonic Orchestra during the evening event "Serie Guarana com Orquestra Amazonas Filharmonica".


The program for September 2013. Almost every night there is an event, several of which are completely free.






At night it is almost as hot and humid outside as in the daytime. But yes, Manaus is in the middle of the Amazon rainforests.

Continued..