Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro

The Theatro Municipal is Rio de Janeiro's principal stage for opera, ballet and classical music. It stands on Praça Floriano in Cinelândia and opened on 14 July 1909, during the term of mayor Souza Aguiar. The design is by Francisco de Oliveira Passos, working with the French architect Albert Guilbert, and draws on Charles Garnier's Paris Opéra.

Outside, a stone staircase leads up to the entrance, gold leaf picks out details of the façade and dome, and a gilded copper eagle with outspread wings crowns the centre of the roof between three golden domes. Inside, the decoration brought together leading Brazilian artists of the time. Eliseu Visconti painted the front curtain, the ceiling over the stalls and the frieze above the proscenium, as well as the foyer ceiling and side panels, which are regarded as a masterpiece of decorative painting in Brazil. Rodolfo Amoedo painted eight works for the foyer rotundas, Henrique Bernardelli painted the rotunda ceilings, and there are sculptures by Rodolfo Bernardelli. European craftsmen made the stained glass and mosaics.

The auditorium seated 1,739 at opening and now holds more than 2,000. The theatre closed from 1975 to 1978 for restoration and modernisation, and reopened on 27 May 2010 after a centenary restoration of more than 900 days that used 219,000 sheets of gold leaf and 57 tonnes of copper. The works uncovered a 1907 frieze that had been hidden for decades, and even a secret passage. The basement has an Assyrian-style room that has housed the Assirius restaurant, one of the more unusual interiors in the city.

The theatre is home to a symphony orchestra founded in 1931, a choir and a ballet company, and is linked to the Maria Olenewa state dance school. Its stage has hosted Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Arturo Toscanini, Sarah Bernhardt, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Igor Stravinsky, and Barack Obama addressed an audience here on 20 March 2011.

The best way to appreciate the building is to attend a performance, as the programme is dominated by dance and classical music. The theatre's own website could not be checked for this listing, so look up the current season, ticket sales and any guided visits before you plan around them.

The theatre is in the Centro district, which also holds Confeitaria Colombo on Rua Gonçalves Dias and the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, so it fits naturally into a day exploring the historic centre.