Teatro Argentino de La Plata
Encyclopedia
La Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
is the second most important lyric opera house in Argentina, after the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. The Teatro Argentino is located in a central block of the city of La Plata
La Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
, the capital of Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires Province
The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...
. The venue occupies the block bounded by the 9 and 10 streets and 51 & 53 avenues; it belongs to the so-called Monumental Axis of public buildings in La Plata.
The original building
The original building was a classic Italian opera house, conceived in renaissance style by the Italian architect Leopoldo Rocchi. Construction began in 1887, five years after the foundation of the city of La PlataLa Plata
La Plata is the capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and of La Plata partido. According to the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants....
itself. The main hall had a capacity of ca. 1,500 seats. It was inaugurated on November 19, 1890, with Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
; in leading roles were the Italian soprano Elvira Colonnese (Desdemona) and the Uruguayan tenor José Oxilia (Othello).
The theatre grew to accommodate a renowned stable orchestra and chorus. A stable ballet company was added in 1946. Among the great artists that performed at the Teatro Argentino we find singers such as Maria Barrientos
Maria Barrientos
Maria Barrientos was a Spanish opera singer, a light coloratura soprano, one of the most eminent sopranos of her time.- Life and career :...
, Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini was an Italian coloratura soprano of great international fame.Tetrazzini's voice was remarkable for its phenomenal flexibility, thrust, steadiness and thrilling tone...
, Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
, Emma Carelli
Emma Carelli
Emma Carelli was an Italian operatic soprano who was particularly associated with the dramatic soprano roles of the verisimo repertoire and the works of Richard Wagner....
, Fedora Barbieri
Fedora Barbieri
Fedora Barbieri was an Italian mezzo-soprano.Barbieri was born in Trieste. She made her official debut in Florence in 1940, but retired in 1943 because of her marriage. She re-emerged in 1945. She was one of the first performers to investigate and perform in early operas by Monteverdi and Pergolesi...
, Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa
Tito Schipa was an Italian tenor. He is considered one of the finest tenori di grazia in operatic history...
, Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli
Beniamino Gigli was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism...
, Titta Ruffo
Titta Ruffo
Titta Ruffo , born as Ruffo Titta Cafiero, was an Italian opera star who had a major international singing career. Known as the "Voce del leone" , he was greatly admired, even by rival baritones, such as Giuseppe De Luca, who said of Ruffo: "His was not a voice, it was a miracle" Titta Ruffo (9...
, and Mario del Monaco
Mario del Monaco
Mario Del Monaco was an Italian tenor who is regarded by his admirers as being one of the greatest dramatic tenors of the 20th century....
, classical ballet dancers such as Anna Pavlova, Dore Hoyer and Iris Scaccheri, as well as musicians such as Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
(with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
The Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....
), Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein KBE was a Polish-American pianist. He received international acclaim for his performances of the music of a variety of composers...
, Andrés Segovia
Andrés Segovia
Andrés Torres Segovia, 1st Marquis of Salobreña , known as Andrés Segovia, was a virtuoso Spanish classical guitarist from Linares, Jaén, Andalucia, Spain...
, Alexander Brailowsky
Alexander Brailowsky
Alexander Brailowsky was a Ukrainian French pianist who specialized in the works of Frédéric Chopin. He was a leading concert pianist in the years between the two World Wars.-Early life:...
, Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy...
, Pablo Casals
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...
, and Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985...
.
The New Building
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, Umberto Giordano
Umberto Giordano
Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
and Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, as well as the ballet Tango en gris ("Tango in grey"), with music by Atilio Stampone
Atilio Stampone
Atilio Stampone is an Argentine pianist, composer and arranger prominent in the Tango genre.-Life and work:He was born to Romana Zangone, from Calabria, and Antonio Stampone, a pasta maker from Napoli, in the middle-class San Cristóbal section of Buenos Aires...
and régie by Oscar Araiz.
The new complex includes today a 2,000-seat operatic venue with a typical European horseshoe structure, named Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Ginastera
Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered one of the most important Latin American classical composers.- Biography :...
Hall after the famous Argentine composer. An enormous three-tonne bronze chandelier with 400 light-bulbs hangs over the main floor, in an exact replica of the one featured in the original building.
The complex also includes the smaller 300-seat Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
Hall, as well as rehearsal areas, and space for the associated technical shops. The lower level includes the Emilio Pettoruti
Emilio Pettoruti
Emilio Pettoruti was an Argentine painter, who caused a scandal with his avant-garde cubist exhibition in 1924 in Buenos Aires. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires was a city full of artistic development...
Exhibition Hall for permanent and transient art collections.
Despite the excellent technical facilities and the superb acoustics of the main hall, the complex itself, built in brutalist style, continues to be regarded as a sort of eyesore by the local population.