Museum Visit (final blog)

Teatro Amazonas is a historical landmark built in the late 1800's by the Portuguese. It is situated in the down town of Manaus and still operates as a theater.

This first photo is hard to make out, but it is the ceiling above the main stage. In the center hangs a chandelier. 

This is the ceiling in the main hall of the theater. It was hand painted and spans the length of the room.

These are various paintings that are painted directly onto the plaster walls of the main hall. There is no flash allowed in the Theater so the photos can be hard to see clearly.

This is a view of the exterior of the Teatro as seen from the square that was built around it.

O Teatro Amazonas, or the Amazon Theater, is in the city I live in; Manaus. The theater was finished in 1892 and took 15 years to complete, and those financing the construction and decoration wanted  the custom, hand painted and hand picked furniture and art. The Theater's furniture was meant to be modeled after the styles used by Louis XV in France. The Portuguese elite who would attend and fund the theater were very much in style with what was also going on back at home in Portugal and France.

Visiting the theater was like stepping back in time, and was completely unexpected as it is located in the middle of the Amazon forest. Walking through, the wood floors are still original and intact, the walls are hand painted and consist of very european renaissance themes; very romantic landscapes or mythological scenes.