The present Colón replaced an original theatre which opened in 1857. Towards the end of the century, it became clear that a new theatre was needed, and after a 20-year process, the present theatre opened on 25 May 1908, with Giuseppe Verdi's Aïda.
The Teatro Colón was visited by the foremost singers and opera companies of the time, who would sometimes go on to other cities including Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
After this period of huge international success, the theatre's decline became clear and plans were made for massive renovations. After an initial start of works to restore the landmark in 2005, the theatre was closed for refurbishment from October 2006 to May 2010. It re-opened on 24 May 2010, with a programme for the 2010 season.<ref>Robert Turnbull, "An Operatic Drama Performed Mostly Offstage", New York Times, 16 June 2010 Retrieved 10 Nov 2010</ref>
The theatre was declared a National Historic Monument in 1991.<ref name=gcba1/> It is home to the Teatro Colón’s Resident Orchestra, Resident Choir, and Resident Ballet, as well as the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra. The venue also hosts the Teatro Colón’s Center for Experimentation, the Higher Institute of Art with its Orchestral Academy, the Children’s Choir, and the Colón Contemporary music program.
The Colón theater operated in two buildings, the first located in the Plaza de Mayo until 1888 and the second located in front of the Plaza Lavalle, which took 20 years to be built until its inauguration in 1908. This land formerly housed the Park Station, the first railway station of the Argentine Republic as head of the Western Railway of Buenos Aires.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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Among the main events of its history are the creation of stable bodies in the 1920s and its municipalisation in 1931. In 1946, Peronism promoted a policy of openness to popular music and greater democratisation of the public, which was reverted after its overthrow in 1955 and again resumed when democracy recovered in 1983.
In 2006 a full restoration work was started that would extend until 2010, when it was reopened on May 24 in commemoration of the Bicentennial of Argentina.
The first Teatro Colón
The first Teatro Colón was designed by Charles Pellegrini, and proved to be a successful venue for over 30 years, with 2,500 seats with the inclusion of a separate gallery reserved only for people who were in mourning. The construction started in 1856 and completed in 1857. This was celebrated with an opening on 27 April 1857, with Verdi's La traviata, just four years after its Italian premiere. The production starred Sofia Vera Lorini as Violetta and Enrico Tamberlik as Alfredo.
This theater was closed on 13 September 1888 to step aside for a new improved building, which was opened twenty years later on Libertad street, overlooking Plaza Lavalle. In that period of time, the 1890 crisis and its effects were the cause for the delay in the completion of this second theater.
Before the construction of the current Teatro Colón, opera performances were given in several theatres, of which the first Teatro Colón and the Teatro Opera were the most important. The principal company that performed at the Teatro Opera moved to the Teatro Colón in 1908. However, major companies also performed at the Teatro Politeama and the Teatro Coliseo which opened in 1907.
The auditorium is horseshoe-shaped, has 2,487 seats (slightly more than the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London), standing room for 1,000 and a stage which is 20 m wide, 15 m high and 20 m deep.<ref>Official websiteTemplate:Webarchive</ref> The low-rise building has 6 floors above ground and 3 below ground, 7 elevators with a facade of applied masonry.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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The Colon's acoustics are considered to be so good as to place it in the top five performance venues in the world.<ref name="Long">Long, Marshall, "What is So Special About Shoebox Halls? Envelopment, Envelopment, Envelopment", Acoustics Today, April 2009, pp.21–25.</ref> Luciano Pavarotti held a similar opinion.<ref>Luciano Pavarotti's reaction to the acoustics in Lynn, p.30: The theatre's "acoustics (have) the greatest defect: its acoustics are perfect! Imagine what this signifies for the singer: if one sings something bad, one notices immediately"</ref>
The cornerstone of the present Teatro Colón was laid in 1889 under the direction of architect Francesco Tamburini and his pupil, Vittorio Meano, who designed a theatre in the Italian style on a scale and with amenities which matched those in Europe. However, delays followed due to financial difficulties, arguments regarding the location, the death of Tamburini in 1891, the murder of Meano in 1904 and the death of Angelo Ferrari, an Italian businessman who was financing the new theatre. The building was finally completed in 1908 under the direction of the Belgian architect Julio Dormal who made some changes in the structure and left his mark in the French style of the decoration. The bas-reliefs and busts on the facade are the work of sculptor Luigi Trinchero.
The theatre's opening on 25 May, the Día de la Patria in Argentina, featured a performance of Verdi's Aida and it quickly became a world-famous operatic venue rivaling La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in attracting most of the world's best opera singers and conductors.
The Teatro was bombed by anarchists in 1910; Georges Clemenceau was present in Argentina during the attack.<ref name=architecturalreview/> The bomb landed in the middle of the orchestra. Clemenceau describes the attack as follows: "The horror can not be exaggerated. A senior official told me that he had never seen such puddles of blood. The wounded were carried off as best as possible, and the room was emptied by the cries of fury, and the material damage repaired during the day which followed, not a woman of society missed the representation of the morrow. It is a fine trait of character that particularly honours the female element of the Argentine nation. I am not quite sure that in Paris the hall would have been full in such cases."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Ballet stars performed at the Colón alongside Argentine dancers and classical instrumentalists. This included the prima ballerina, Lida Martinoli.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> When she retired from dancing, Martinoli began to choreograph. She died in Santa Fe. The tragic 1971 aviation death of two of the best known of these, Norma Fontenla and José Neglia, was commemorated with a monument in neighbouring Lavalle Square.
With excellent acoustics and modern stage areas, the theatre's interior design features a rich scarlet and gold decor. The cupola contains canvas painted in 1966 by the 20th-century artist Raúl Soldi during renovation work.
In recent years, given the political and economic circumstances of Argentina, the Teatro Colón has suffered considerably, but a period of slow recovery began. The theatre underwent massive phased remodelling of both interior and exterior, initially while the house was still open, but production activities ceased at the end of December 2006 to allow full refurbishment.
Initially, "what had been planned as an 18-month, $25-million renovation with 500 workers, scheduled for a May 2008 reopening with Aida, became a three-year $100-million extravaganza with 1,500 workers including 130 professional architects and engineers."<ref name="Lynn">Lynn, p. 29</ref> In addition, an exterior open-air stage was planned for an opening in 2011.<ref name="Lynn"/> In all, Template:Convert underwent updating, both inside and out.
Some of the last performances immediately before closure of the theatre's building were Swan Lake on 30 September with the Ballet Estable del Teatro Colón and the Buenos Aires Philharmonic (Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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While it was originally planned to reopen in time for the centenary on 25 May 2008, delays prevented this, and the house was finally reopened with a gala concert and 3D animations on 24 May 2010, the eve of its own 102nd birthday and the Argentina Bicentennial. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and Act 2 of Puccini's La bohème were performed. A private concert to test the acoustics attended by employees, architects, and others involved in the renovation occurred on 6 May 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the 6 September 2013, the Teatro Colón hosted the Opening Ceremony of the 125th Session of the International Olympic Committee.
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