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Teatro Arriaga

Teatro Arriaga

Joaquín Rucoba

Photo: Pedro J Pacheco · CC BY-SA 3.0 es · Wikimedia Commons

Location
Bilbao, Spain
Client / Owner
—
Year
Completed 1890
Access
Tickets required
Typology
Cultural
Style
—

The Teatro Arriaga is an opera house on the Nervión River in Bilbao, Spain. Architect Joaquín Rucoba, who also designed Bilbao's City Hall, built it in a Neo-Baroque style with French influences, and its façades draw on the Paris Opera House. It opened on May 31, 1890, after about four years of construction. It was named for the Basque composer Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga.

A fire destroyed the theatre in 1914. Federico de Ugalde led the reconstruction, and it reopened on June 5, 1919. Floods in August 1983 damaged it, and it reopened on December 5, 1986, after a restoration that added an imperial staircase.

The main façade is curved and flanked by two domed turrets. The horseshoe auditorium seats 1,200 in five areas. When built, the theatre used electric lighting and an iron structure meant to reduce fire risk.

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