The
Teatro Real (literally Royal Theater) or simply The Real (as it is known
colloquialy), is an opera house located in Madrid, Spain. It was inaugurated
on 19 November 1850, with Donizetti's La Favorite and is one of the world's
finest stage and acoustic settings for opera. It is one of the world's
most famous opera houses, comparable to many in Europe and elsewhere. The
construction of the Real was ordered by the Queen Isabel II, hence its
name, the Real (royal in Spanish). The Teatro Real is located just in front
of the Palacio Real, the official residence of the Kings of Spain. The
most successful years of the opera house (including the visit of Giuseppe
Verdi to present his new opera La Forza del Destino) were from its construction
in 1850 to 1925, when the theater had to be closed because of the damage
that the construction of the Metro de Madrid had caused on the building.
The
theater reopened in 1966 as a concert theater until the middle of the 1990s,
when the theater was remodeled to host opera again. In 1969, the 14th Eurovision
Song Contest was held at the theatre, featuring a metal sculpture on stage
which was created by surrealist Spanish artist, Salvador Dalí. Since
1997, the theater has recouped the fame and the excellence that it possessed
on the XIX Century. The orchestra of the Teatro Real is the Orquesta Sinfónica
de Madrid. The Teatro Real has a museum, and daily tours of the building
are given even when there are no performances.
Metro
station (Metro de Madrid): Ópera (line 2) |
