Tango and the Opera House

Friday, March 17, 2017

Last night we went to the tango show, and it was fascinating.  One and a half hours of two different kinds of tango, "Show Tango" and ordinary dance tango, of which there was little.  Show Tango, we were told, is choreographed as opposed to ordinary dance tango which is spontaneous.

We started with a little dance tango:

Here's a short video of show tango, performed to a live 8-piece orchestra:

And they had an older couple, the man is a famed tango instructor, performing dance tango:

We got to bed well after midnight, and rose early to start our day.  Our first stop was the incredible Teatro Colón, the Buenos Aires Opera House, opened in 1908 and restored between 2006 and 2010 at a cost of 34 million US dollars.  It is amazing, with marble from Carrera, Portugal, and other places, a Venetian mosaic floor, a huge amount of gold leaf, and on and on.  We had a formal tour.

Here is the main entrance:

There are three different marbles in the staircase:

The floor throughout is Venetian mosaic:

The ceilings are remarkable:

There are a number of beautiful glass ceiling panels: 

There are multiple magnificent halls outside the theater:

The theater is supposedly one of the five acoustically best halls in the world.  It holds 2400 seated and another 600 standing in the top tiers, called the “Hen House”. 

 According to our guide, the excellent acoustics are partly dependent on the ventilation system!  Each seat has a vent which has been acoustically tuned to magnify the sound coming from the stage:

  

The chandelier is enormous and can hold up to 15 musicians with instruments for special effects:

  

After the tour of the Teatro Colón, we walked to the nearby Sinagoga Central, or “Synagogue of the Israelite Congregation of the Argentinian Republic” which was originally built in 1897 and expanded in 1932. 

The interior is of Ashkenazic design despite the fact that the large majority of Jewish immigrants to Argentina were from Italy and Spain.  It has an organ built in above the bima.

  

There is a small museum attached which was disappointing, as it contained a few artifacts, but little information on the history of the Argentine Jewish community.  One of the displays contained a series of paper money bills of various denominations with no explanation.  I’ve never seen anything like them before:

Some research on the internet reveals that there was paper money in Theresienstadt!  See: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn39022 .

We then walked to a famous bookstore which is in a renovated theater, named Ateneo.  It was remarkable:

  

Finally, a late, long lunch in a wonderful Italian restaurant, and back to the hotel in the late afternoon for a nap.  Tomorrow Iguazu Falls!