National Theatre of Costa Rica
Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica
Interesting facts
- The original coffee levy that paid for the theatre was set at 20 cents for every 46 kilograms of coffee exported.
- The builders expected to finish in two years; in the end construction took six, from 1891 to 1897.
- The Italian engineer Cesare Saldini designed the machinery that lifts the auditorium floor to stage level for balls.
- The facade’s allegorical figures of Dance, Fame and Music were carved by Pietro Bulgarelli, while Adriático Froli sculpted Calderón and Beethoven.
- The theatre’s statues personifying Comedy and Tragedy are the work of the Genoese sculptor Pietro Capurro.
- The original statues on the facade suffered from the weather over the decades and were eventually taken down.
- In 1998 the theatre hosted the OTI Festival, the Ibero-American song contest broadcast across Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries.
- In 1999 Costa Rica named it a Benemérita Institución de las Artes Patrias, an honour for institutions that have served the national arts.
- A monument to Frédéric Chopin stands beside the walkway leading to the theatre’s entrance.
Why it is worth it
When San José had barely twenty thousand inhabitants, Costa Rica built itself an opera house fit for a European capital. The National Theatre was the country's statement that coffee money had made it a modern nation, and it is still the finest historic building in the city: a neoclassical front with statues of Calderón de la Barca and Beethoven, set on the edge of the Plaza Juan Mora Fernández. Inside are marble staircases, a lavishly decorated foyer and an auditorium finished in precious tropical woods.
The project followed an earthquake. In late December 1888 a series of tremors finished off the old municipal theatre, and a celebrated diva's refusal to sing on a makeshift stage stung the capital's pride. A law of 1890 declared the new theatre a national work and funded it at first with a tax on exported coffee, later replaced by a duty on imports, so that in the end the whole population paid for it. Building began in January 1891 and dragged on for years amid disputes over design flaws and foundations, until the Italian engineer Cristóforo Molinari was brought in to correct them. Iron framing came from Belgium, the marble work from the Durini family of Italian marble carvers, and precious local woods from Alajuela province. The auditorium floor could be mechanically raised to stage level to turn the hall into a ballroom, a device then found only in the most sophisticated European houses. The theatre opened in October 1897 with Gounod's Faust, sung by a French company.
Look up as you walk through. The ceilings and walls were painted by a group of Milanese artists, among them Roberto Fontana, Carlo Ferrario, Vespasiano Bignami and Aleardo Villa, with contributions from the Costa Rican painter Tomás Povedano. Villa's Allegory of Coffee and Bananas, showing plantation workers and export cargo under a painted sky, became the most famous picture in the country and was once printed on the national five-colón banknote. The theatre was declared a national monument in 1965 and a national symbol in 2018, and it remains a working stage, home to performances by the National Symphony Orchestra.
Getting there
The theatre is in the centre of San José, about 0.9 km from the city's central point. The nearest airport is Tobías Bolaños International Airport (SYQ), about 7.4 km away, which handles mainly domestic and light aircraft; most international flights use Juan Santamaría International Airport (SJO) near Alajuela.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The National Theatre of Costa Rica is Costa Rica's national theatre, located in the central section of San José. Construction began in 1897, and it opened to the public on 21 October 1897 with a performance of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust. It has capacity for 1,140 people.
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