This theatrical venue lies on the borders of the historical city center and constitutes a significant part of Cuban cultural heritage, both for the stage history it has accumulated over a period of 130 years, and for the visual wealth it recovered since its reopening in the year 2014, one which allows visitors to appreciate, much like entering a very unique museum, the forms of design and construction manners that were used in the XIX century in the theaters of Havana.
Its dozens of large lateral openings that enabled the place’s ventilation and earned it the nickname of “the coliseum of a 100 doors” in its time, its magnificent chandelier lamp overhanging the center of the orchestra section and in large part responsible for the theater’s illumination, its carpeting and the upholstery of its chairs all of a deep green color, its front curtain, the boxes in the gallery of the upper floors, its curtains: these are all precious elements belonging to a past that we see less and less of in our day.
Inaugurated on the 8th of June 1884, it initially bore the name of its builder: Irijoa, adopting its present name in 1900 following the downfall of Spanish colonialism in the island. The theater’s halls served as the venue that in 1901 hosted the Constituent Assembly charged with writing the first Magna Carta of the Cuban Republic.
It currently has a seating capacity for 720 spectators.
Address: Dragones corner to Zulueta, Municipality of Habana Vieja, La Habana, Cuba
Telephone: