Coliseu dos Recreios

A HISTORICAL LANDMARK
On August 14, 1890, a large concert hall was inaugurated, the new Coliseu dos Recreios. There were four bold businessmen (solicitor José Frederico Ciríaco, philosophy teacher Pedro António Monteiro, merchant António Caetano Macieira and meat merchant João Baptista G. de Ahneida) who conceived building the largest covered building in the world dedicated to the show business and whose capacity would exceed 4000 seats.

The Coliseu dos Recreios was innovative in the introduction of iron architecture, still incipient in Portugal at that time, through the spectacular iron dome, with a radius of 25 meters, coming from Germany, in a commission made to the firm Hein Lehmann & Co. The roof, also made of iron, was installed in 1889 and was the responsibility of engineer Lacombe. The design of the work was due to engineers Goulard, father and son and the Portuguese Manuel Garcia Júnior, Frederico Ressano Garcia (the Portuguese engineer), master M. Gouveia Júnior and engineer Xavier Cordeiro, the metal construction was carried out by Castanheira das Neves and the decoration to painter António Machado, so that he could carry out a beautiful decoration and put the stage into operation with 40 meters deep, 18 meters wide, a wooden stage web and manual machinery.

The last part to be completed w the facade of the building designed by architect Cesare Lanz. It has three floors, decorative plaster motifs and some carvings, which increase its grandeur.

After 1888, the cost of the original construction became enormous and had to be covered through public subscription. Due to the enthusiasm and persistence of the four businessmen, they managed to raise enough money and event the King became a shareholder.

The Coliseu dos Recreios has always been a popular concert hall, setting low prices and presenting shows of different types, including opera (a few years earlier, in 1887, another Coliseu had opened to the public on the nearby Rua da Palma, in which opera companies also operated but which had a much more ephemeral life). The Coliseu stood out especially in the field of opera during the First Republic (1910-1926). In December 1916 a company debuted organized by Ercole Casali, which included Elvira de Hidalgo and Tito Schipa and from then on, names such as Alfredo Kraus, Antonietta Stella, Carlo Bergonzi, Elena Suliotis, Fiorenza Cossotto, Joan Sutherland, Piero Cappuccilli, Tito Gobbi or Tomás Alcaide. Between 1959 and 1981, lyrical shows began to be organized in collaboration with S.Carlos Theater (the main Opera Theatre in Lisbon), offering the possibility of listening some of the greatest voices that came to Lisbon at affordable prices.

RECENT IMPROVEMENTS
Since 1890, the Coliseu has undergone several rehabilitation works, with emphasis on the last major intervention that was completed in 1994.
On February 26th of the same year, the Coliseu reopened with a concert that marked Lisbon as the European Capital of Culture, a concert in that Maestro Georg Solti directed the London Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Concerto No.5.