Hotels near Teatro Colon

Teatro Colon opened in 1908 after twenty years of construction and three architects, two of whom died before the doors ever opened. The main hall seats about 2,500 with standing room for several hundred more, and its acoustics are routinely ranked among the best of any opera house anywhere. Toscanini, Callas, Nureyev and Pavarotti all worked this stage. The horseshoe auditorium is lined in gold leaf and red velvet beneath a dome painted by Raul Soldi in 1966, and the Golden Hall upstairs borrows its mirrored galleries from Versailles.

Guided tours leave roughly every 15 minutes from 09:00 to 17:00, last about 50 minutes and cost around EUR 20 for foreign visitors; the long construction saga is laid out in the theatre's Wikipedia entry. A cheap upper-gallery seat for a real performance often costs less than the tour and delivers the acoustics as they were designed - the standing paradise level right at the top is the local trick. The season runs March to December.

Pro Tip: Book online the night before for a 09:00 or 09:15 slot. The first two tours of the day are the only ones that reliably get onto the stage itself, and the English-language groups fill fastest.