Colon Theater
The Colon Theater in Buenos Aires is one of the most important opera houses in the world. Its rich and prestigious history and the exceptional acoustic and architectural conditions of its building place it at the level of theaters such as the Scala of Milan, the Opera of Paris, the Opera of Vienna, the Covent Garden of London and the Metropolitan of New York.
In its first headquarters, the Teatro Colón operated from 1857 to 1888, the year in which it was closed for the construction of a new hall. This was inaugurated on May 25, 1908 with an Aida function. In its beginnings, Columbus hired foreign companies for its seasons; As of 1925, it had its own stable bodies – Orchestra, Ballet and Coro – and its own production workshops, which allowed it, in the 1930s, to organize its own seasons financed by the city budget. Since then, the Teatro Colón has been defined as a seasonal theater or stagione with the capacity to fully carry out the entire production thanks to the professionalism of its specialized stage bodies.
Throughout its history, no major artist of the last 110 years has stopped stepping on his stage. Suffice it to mention singers like Enrico Caruso, Claudia Muzio, Maria Callas, Régine Crespin, Birgit Nilsson, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, dancers like Vaslav Nijinski, Margot Fonteyn, Maia Plisetskaia, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Barishnikov, directors like Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, Héctor Panizza, Ferdinand Leitner, among tens more. It is also frequent that, following the tradition inaugurated by Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saëns, Pietro Mascagni and Ottorino Respighi, the composers come to Columbus to direct or supervise the premieres of their own works.
Several first-class teachers worked here to achieve high artistic goals, such as Erich Kleiber, Fritz Busch, stage directors such as Margarita Wallmann or Ernst Poettgen, dance teachers such as Bronislawa Nijinska or Tamara Grigorieva, choir directors such as Romano Gandolfi or Tullio Boni , not to mention the numerous instrumental soloists and symphony and chamber orchestras that offered unforgettable evenings on our stage over more than a hundred years of sustained activity.
As of 2010, the Teatro Colón exhibits a restored building in all its original splendor, giving a framework of distinguished hierarchy to its presentations. For all these reasons, the Teatro Colón is a pride of Argentine culture and a reference center for opera, dance and academic music throughout the world.