Teatro Solís
Teatro Solís
Teatro Solís, Uruguay's principal opera house, located in Montevideo. Opened on 25 August 1856, the Teatro Solís seats twenty-eight hundred people and is the oldest opera house in the Americas. In 1888 Adelina Patti, the great nineteenth-century diva, sang in seven operas there. That same year Verdi's Otello was performed with the soprano Romilda Pantaleoni in the role of Desdemona, which she had created for the world premiere at Milan's La Scala the year before. The Solís's golden age began in 1903, when the 285-member opera company of La Scala arrived, led by the conductor Arturo Toscanini and with a roster of singers headed by Enrico Caruso. The Solís presented operatic masterpieces very soon after their world premieres. Puccini's Madama Butterfly was performed with both Rosina Storchio and maestro Toscanini, six months after its La Scala premiere. José Oxilia, Victor Damiani, and José Soler were among the world-renowned Uruguayan singers who performed at the Solís. During World War I and the postwar era the Solís hosted famous artists such as Artur Rubinstein and leading orchestras like the Vienna Philharmonic. Vaslav Nijinsky's last stage performance was at the Solís in October 1917. George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess was performed for the first time in Montevideo at the Solís in 1955, under the direction of Alexander Smallens, who conducted the Broadway premiere in 1935. The Teatro Solís maintains its commitment to the presentation of local and foreign artists in operatic, orchestral, dance, and dramatic performances.
See alsoMusic: Art Music .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Susana Salgado, Breve historia de la música culta en el Uruguay, 2d ed. (1980), and The Teatro Solís of Montevideo (forthcoming); New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 3 (1992), p. 453.
Additional Bibliography
Bouret, Daniela. Teatro Solís: 150 años de historias desde el escenario. Montevideo: Linardi y Risso, 2006.
Bouret, Daniela. Teatro Solís: Historias y documentos. Montevideo: Intendencia Municipal de Montevideo, 2004.
Salgado, Susana. The Teatro Solís: 150 years of Opera, Concert, and Ballet in Montevideo. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003.
Susana Salgado