The Degollado Theater

Around 1838, people in Guadalajara sought a venue where the Fine Arts could be cultivated, and through the intervention of Antonio Pérez Verdia and Governor Santos Degollado, the Degollado Theater was conceived. The project began in 1855 under the architect Jacobo Gálvez, but political conflicts and wars repeatedly interrupted construction. In September 1856, though still unfinished, it held its first inauguration with the opera “Lucia di Lammermoor,” featuring the celebrated Mexican soprano Angela Peralta, known in Europe as the “Mexican Nightingale.” Work resumed in 1877, and the interiors were completed between 1880 and 1893. In 1954, allegories of “Apollo and the Nine Muses” by Roberto Montenegro were installed in the tympanum of the portico, and in 1964 they were replaced by another work on the same theme in white marble by Benito Castaneda. The theater has been one of the few to have five inaugurations. Its architectural features include five levels of boxes, Corinthian and Tuscan columns, marble floors, ornate ironwork, gardens and fountains on its north and south sides, and frescos by Gerardo Suárez and Jacobo Gálvez on the enormous vault alluding to Canto IV in Heaven of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

Jalisco · Mexico