Teatro Amazonas or Amazon Theater is an opera house located in Manaus, in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. It was built during the Belle Époque at a time when fortunes were made in the rubber boom using materials from all over the world, with furniture from Paris, marble from Italy, and steel from England. The theatre's 198 chandeliers were imported from Italy, including 32 of Murano glass. On the outside of the building, the dome was covered with 36,000 decorated ceramic tiles painted in the colors of the Brazilian national flag.
The theater was inaugurated on December 31, 1896, with the first performance occurring on January 7, 1897, with the Italian opera, La Gioconda, by Amilcare Ponchielli. The opera house was closed down soon after however as the rubber trade declined and Manaus lost its main source of income. There wasn’t a single performance in Teatro Amazonas for 90 years until 2001 when it reopened its doors.
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