[ Jan.2016 ] The Municipal Theatre in Rio de Janeiro is situated in the square called Cinelandia where there used to be many cinemas.
When we were there, the theatre was not showing any performances because of the summer holiday, but we could join the tour of the theatre.
This theatre was built in 1905, inspired by the Paris Opera.
Surely, the front staircase and the area surrounding the auditorium were similar to the Paris Opera.
They seemed to have done some renovation works in the past and we were shown the video about most recent work which was done in 2010.
They employed more than 900 specialists and took 850 days to restore the building to its original beauty.
The auditorium has the capacity of about 2300 audience members, but it did not look so big.
What I was impressed was that they have one Sunday a month that people can come and enjoy the concerts or ballet only for 1 Brazilian Real ( about 20 pence or 24 cent ).
Amazing isn’t it.
The cafe which used to be a restaurant downstairs were designed with the image of Assylia, which was memorable.
Also the toilet was nice.
An English man, a member of our tour, went to the gents and came back happily, saying “The urinal was made in England!”.
