Theatro Municipal
You start on Cinelândia square, facing an opera house that would look at home in Paris, and that is no accident. The Theatro Municipal was modelled on Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra, built in an eclectic style and is often counted among the most beautiful and important theatres in Brazil. Look up at the outer walls: they carry the names of classic European and Brazilian artists. The National Library and the National Fine Arts Museum stand close by, part of the same grand set piece.
The idea is older than the building. In the late 19th century Rio, then Brazil's capital, had a lively theatre scene but only two houses, the Lyric and St. Peter, and both audiences and companies complained about them. In 1894, after the Proclamation of the Republic, the playwright Artur Azevedo campaigned for a new theatre with a resident company along the lines of the Comédie Française. The result was a municipal law ordering the construction, and even a tax to pay for it. The law was ignored, and the money never went into the theatre.
It took the next century to get it done. Mayor Francisco Pereira Passos was remaking the centre, opening the Avenida Central in 1903, today Avenida Rio Branco, as a Parisian boulevard lined with eclectic architecture. The theatre became the brainchild of his son, Francisco de Oliveira Passos, working with Albert Guilbert, and a symbol of the young Republic's new era. Construction began in 1905 on 1,180 wooden piles driven down into the groundwater.
Going inside means joining a guided tour, which costs entry and runs only at set times. It is worth it if you love architecture or opera; otherwise the facade and the square tell most of the story. From here it is 960 m, about 14 min, to Lapa and a very different kind of artwork.
