Amazon Theatre

The Amazon Theatre is the most eloquent relic of the years when rubber made Manaus, a river port in the middle of the rainforest, one of the richest cities in Brazil. The project was put before the provincial assembly in 1881, the foundation stone was laid in 1884, and the house was inaugurated on the last day of 1896; the first opera, Ponchielli's La Gioconda, followed a week later. A Lisbon engineering and architecture office won the contract, and the Italian architect Celestial Sacardim directed the works. Almost everything that could be imported was: roof tiles from Alsace, steel for the walls from Glasgow, Carrara marble for stairs, columns and statues, French furniture in the Louis XV manner, and chandeliers from Italy, some of them Murano glass.

From the square outside the eye goes first to the dome, covered in some 36,000 glazed ceramic scales in green, blue and gold, the colours of the Brazilian flag. The theatre rises above the Largo de São Sebastião, and the square is part of the show. Its pavement, laid in 1901, is a pattern of black and white Portuguese stone waves that stand for the meeting of the two great rivers near the city, and it predates the famous wave promenade of Copacabana in Rio by several years. Together with the Church of São Sebastião and the monument to the opening of the Amazon ports to world trade, square and theatre form one Belle Époque ensemble built on rubber money.

Inside, the auditorium is intimate, with 701 seats arranged in stalls and three tiers of boxes. Look up at the ceiling panels painted by the Italian artist Domenico de Angelis, and at the stage curtain by Crispim do Amaral, which shows the Meeting of the Waters, the place just downstream where the dark Rio Negro and the sandy Solimões run side by side without mixing. Upstairs, the Noble Hall carries de Angelis's allegory of the fine arts glorified in the Amazon. The theatre is home to the Amazonas Philharmonic and, since 1997, to the Amazonas Opera Festival, and in July 2026 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with the Theatro da Paz in Belém.

Getting there

The theatre stands in the historic centre of Manaus, on Largo de São Sebastião off Avenida Eduardo Ribeiro. Eduardo Gomes International Airport (MAO) is about 11 km away.