Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex
Encyclopedia
The Teresa Carreño Cultural Complex (Complejo Cultural Teresa Carreño), also known as Teresa Carreño Theater (Teatro Teresa Carreño), is the most important theatre of Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

 and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, where performances include symphonic and popular concerts, opera, ballet and plays. It is the second largest theater in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 after the Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

.

The theatre was built on a 22 thousand square meter lot and named after the Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreño
Teresa Carreño
María Teresa Carreño García de Sena was a Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor.Born into a musical family, she was at first taught by her father, then by Mathias, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Anton Rubinstein and her talent was recognized at an early age...

. It is located in the cultural district of the city near the Caobos Park and the building that was occupied by the Caracas Athenaeum
Caracas Athenaeum
The Caracas Athenaeum is a cultural institution centred on the arts. It is currently located in Macaracuay, after having been in the area of Los Caobos, Caracas, Venezuela. The building hosts two theatre auditoriums, a concert hall, a library, a gallery, a cinema, rehearsal rooms, a café, as well...

 up to 2009. It houses two concert halls: the José Félix Ribas and the Ríos Reyna.

It is the residence of
  • the Teresa Carreño Opera Choir ,
  • the Teresa Carreño Ballet, directed up to 2002 by renown choreographer Vicente Nebrada,
  • the National Philarmonic Orchestra of Venezuela.


Its spaces are also shared by the National Theater Company of Venezuela, the Monteávila bookstore and the Venezuela's Cinematheque Video Shop.

The artistic director of the theater is the Venezuelan conductor Rodolfo Saglimbeni
Rodolfo Saglimbeni
Rodolfo Saglimbeni is a conductor. He studied music in Venezuela and then at the Royal Academy of Music of London with Colin Metters, John Carewe and George Hurst, obtaining his degree with Honors....

.

History

In the 1970s, Pedro Antonio Ríos Reyna
Pedro Antonio Ríos Reyna
Pedro Antonio Ríos Reyna was one of the most important Venezuelan classical musicians.Spent his childhood in Caracas and studied at the Fermín Toro Grammar school...

 presented a plan to build a theatre to serve as the residence of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra. The Simón Bolivar Center expanded the project so that the center would serve multiple uses.

The funds for construction were granted in September 1970, and the architects were Tomás Lugo, Jesús Sandoval, and Dietrich Kunckel.

The theatre was inaugurated in two phases: the José Félix Ribas Hall in February 1976, followed by the Ríos Reyna Hall and the rest of the complex on 19 April 1983.

The center facilities have been expanded with two exhibition halls, one dedicated to the pianist Teresa Carreño
Teresa Carreño
María Teresa Carreño García de Sena was a Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor.Born into a musical family, she was at first taught by her father, then by Mathias, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Anton Rubinstein and her talent was recognized at an early age...

 and another one to the composer Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....

.

Spaces

The Teresa Carreño Theatre is an architectonical and cultural masterpiece of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

. It covers a surface of 22,586 m² and has a completed area of over 80,000 m².

Enormous columns and hexagonal roofs in an harmonic overlaid position, integrate the majestic expression of joint architecture and pluralist nature, making it a unique theatre.

  • The Ríos Reyna Hall holds 2,400 people. It is the stage for symphonic concerts, operas, and the most important ballet company of the city.

  • The José Félix Ribas Hall was designed for symphonic and chamber music. Given its intimacy, it could be described as a studio space. It takes the form of a Greek semicircular theatre, a space of 507.5 square meters, a lobby of 160 square meters and capacity for 440 people. It was the official building of the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar
    Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar
    The Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar is a Venezuelan orchestra. It is the apex of the nation's system of youth orchestras under the auspices of Fundacion del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, known colloquially as El Sistema...

     (Venezuela's youth orchestra) from 1976 until the opening of the Inter-American Center for Social Action through Music in 2007.


Artwork

The Theater has extraordinary decoration, with fine pieces of artwork.
  • There are some major master pieces from the Venezuelan sculptor Jesús Rafael Soto
    Jesús Rafael Soto
    Jesús Rafael Soto was a Venezuelan op and kinetic artist, a sculptor and a painter.He was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. He began his artistic career as a boy painting cinema posters in his native city...

    : white vibrant cubes on yellow projection (in the ceiling of the entrance of the Ríos Reyna Hall), vibrant Buckets on white and black progression (in the parking, in front of the José Félix Ribas Hall), vibrant Pyramids (acoustic ceiling of the José Félix Ribas Hall), black Scripture on white bottom and fire-resistant drop curtain (drop curtains of the Ríos Reyna Hall).

  • Pedro Basalo created the Bust of Teresa Carreño located in Cellar 1 area.

  • Harry Abend developed the Relief mural on inclined screens (in the troncopiramidal peak of the scene of the Ríos Reyna).

  • There are also major artist with presence in the Cultural Complex, such as Erling Oloe, Colette Dellozane, Jorge Pizzani and Vincenzo Gemito
    Vincenzo Gemito
    Vincenzo Gemito was an Italian sculptor and artist.Although he worked in various studios of well known artists in his native Naples, Rome and Paris, he is considered to have largely been self-taught, the reason he produced such distinctive works for that time, replacing sentiment with outstanding...

    .

External links

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