Gran Teatro de la Habana

Habana, Cuba

On April 15, 1838, the famous and third most important worldwide Theater Tacón was inaugurated. A work by the architect Antonio Mayo with an eclectic style.

In 1906 this theater and its surroundings were bought to build the Galician Center, where the Galician Anthem was performed for the first time, adding other areas to the existing theater such as the casino, offices, dressing rooms, bathrooms and more. This extension ended between 1914 and 1915, carried out by the construction firm Purdy & Henderson and designed by the Belgian architect Paul Beleu, with a European neo-baroque style, for which stone carvings and sculptures abound, as well as exterior and interior balconies.

It is located at Prado #458 between San Rafael and San José, next door to the world-renowned Hotel Inglaterra and Capitolio Nacional, interesting for its similarity to the Washington DC capitol, since it was designed and built in times when Cuba was a US neo-colony.

The theater has a main room with 90 boxes, 22 rows and a capacity for more than 2,000 spectators called Federico García Lorca, in homage to the outstanding Spanish writer, even many came to think that this was the name of the theater. It also has other smaller rooms like the Lecuona in homage to the Cuban composer. Countless and famous artists from around the world have paraded through them and it is the headquarters of the National Ballet of Cuba and the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba.

Its current name is “Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso”, unofficial sources affirm that this is because it was the dancer who bore all or most of the expenses for the repair of said installation carried out between 2013 and 2015. Alicia Alonso was the creator of the National Ballet of Cuba after “La Revolución” and became its director and prima ballerina after being part of the cast of “Ballet de New York”.