Teatro Real

Yesterday, we visited the historic opera house of Madrid, the Teatro Real.

This opera house is huge and extremely elegant. All of the rooms seem fit for a palace. The ballroom, now used for events, is especially magnificent. The ceiling in this room has a special creative design, with gold specks to represent the stars seen from Madrid as they were the night of October 11, 1997. 1997 was the year Teatro Real reopened after its renovation.

The crown jewel of this building is, of course, the main auditorium. The u-shaped auditorium has very good acoustics and is where the opera takes place. Spectators are able to walk around the rooms before and after the performance.

You have never seen a room as massive and extraordinary as this auditorium. An area of 65,000 sq meters which holds 1750 people on 9 floors. The beauty of this room is in the 1472 sq meter stage. With 6 basement levels (below the stage) that have 9 vertical and 4 horizontal moving platforms, complex scene changes can be made very quickly.

My favorite part of this room was definitely the 2.7 ton (roughly 5,950 pounds) chandelier that hangs from the center of the ceiling. This impeccable chandelier can be lowered to the ground to be cleaned.