El Círculo Theater

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The theater, from the corner of Laprida & Mendoza St.

El Círculo Theater (in Spanish, Teatro El Círculo) is a theater in Rosario, Argentina. It is located near the historical center of the city, at the intersection of Laprida and Mendoza St. Planned as a lyrical theater, its original name was Teatro La Ópera. It was started in 1903, and inaugurated on 4 June 1904, with the performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello.

The theater received many artists (opera singers, ballets, and orchestras) from around the world. Enrico Caruso performed there in 1915, and compared its acoustic quality to that of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

After this phase of splendor, the theater began to decay, and by the 1940s it came to the brink of being demolished. A cultural association called El Círculo de la Biblioteca (The Library Circle), who used to gather at the Biblioteca Argentina and needed another place for their meetings, acquired the building in 1943, preserved it, and changed its name to the present one.

The theater has a capacity of 1,450 people, in 5 levels. It currently functions mostly as a culture center. It was fully restored for its 100th anniversary in 2004, and served as a stage for the Third International Congress of the Spanish Language. The sidewalks and the two streets around the corner of the theater were turned into a sort of plaza with an early 20th century look, using old lampposts and replacing the usual asphalted surface with cobblestones.

The theater is on the list of works and sites of patrimonial value of the municipality of Rosario, as item 012090100.