Colón Theater

The Colón Theater is in Buenos Aires, a city in Argentina.

Inside, singers, dancers and musicians perform on a stage.

The Colón Theater, called Teatro Colón in Spanish, is an opera house in Buenos Aires, a city in Argentina. It puts on operas, ballets and concerts.

The theater calls itself one of the most important opera houses in the world, and it has its own orchestra, ballet company and chorus.

The Teatro Colón stands at Cerrito 628 in Buenos Aires. The theater describes itself as one of the most important opera houses in the world, placing it alongside La Scala, the Paris Opera, the Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera for its history and for the acoustic and architectural qualities of its building.

Since 1925 it has had its own permanent orchestra, ballet and chorus and its own production workshops, so it can create entire productions itself.

Many important singers and dancers have performed here.

The theater has its own orchestra, dancers and singers too.

The theater's history names many performers who have appeared on its stage, such as the singers Enrico Caruso, Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti, and the dancers Vaslav Nijinsky, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev.

Composers such as Richard Strauss and Camille Saint-Saëns came here to conduct or oversee the premieres of their own works.

The theater's own history names singers from Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas to Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, dancers including Vaslav Nijinsky, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev, and conductors such as Arturo Toscanini and Herbert von Karajan. Following a tradition begun by Richard Strauss, Camille Saint-Saëns, Pietro Mascagni and Ottorino Respighi, composers often come to conduct or supervise the premieres of their own works.

Its scenery and machinery workshops under Plaza Vaticano opened on 17 February 1938, and a second expansion under the plaza and Cerrito Street followed in 1968 to 1972.

In this photo, the theater has tall windows, columns and a pointed top.

People walk on the square in front of it, next to green grass.

This photo of the main front was taken on 1 January 2024. You can see rows of arched windows, pairs of columns, carved panels and a glass canopy over the entrance, with a lawn and people in front.

The theater says that from 2010 it has shown its building restored to its original splendor.

The photograph (1 January 2024, by EEJCC, released into the public domain) shows the main facade: a central triangular pediment, carved relief panels, tall arched windows with balconies, paired columns on the side sections and a glass canopy over the entrance, seen across a lawn with a few passers-by.

In 2000 the city government asked its infrastructure department to draw up a master plan to restore the building and update the stage machinery; since 2010, the theater says, the restored building has been on show in its original splendor.