Teatro La Perla is a historic

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

in the city of

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...

. Inaugurated in 1864, it is the second oldest theater of its kind in Puerto Rico, but "the largest and most historic in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean." The theater was named ''La Perla'' in honor of the

Virgin of Montserrat Our Lady of Montserrat or the Virgin of Montserrat ( ca, Mare de Déu de Montserrat) is a Marian title associated with a statue of the Madonna and Child venerated at the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery on the Montserrat Mountain in Catalonia ...

(Spanish: ''La Virgen de Montserrat''), known as "The Pearl of the Mediterranean." It is located in barrio Tercero, in the

Ponce Historic Zone The Ponce Historic Zone (''La Zona Histórica de Ponce'') is a historic district in downtown Ponce, Puerto Rico, consisting of buildings and structures with architecture that date to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The zone go ...

Design

The theater was designed in the 1860s by

Juan Bertoli Calderoni Juan Bertoli Calderoni (sometimes spelled ''Juan Bertoly Calderoni'') was a nineteenth-century French architect from Bastia, Corsica, and long-time resident of Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he designed various prominent structures including Tea ...

(a Ponceño of Italian heritage resident of the city) and it bears a neoclassical structure with an impressive six-column entrance. The building was badly damaged by the 1918 earthquake. However, it was rebuilt in 1940 using the original plans and reopened in 1941 with better acoustics technology. It closed in 2006 for renovations and reopened on 14 March 2008.

History

Teatro La Perla was built under the initiative of Francisco Parra Duperón and Pedro Garriga in May 1864. It was inaugurated on 28 May 1864 with the play ''La campana de la Almudaina'' of the Majorcan writer Juan Palou y Coll by the theatrical company of Segarra & Argente. Teatro La Perla en Ponce, Puerto Rico

Teatro La Perla served as a stage not only to give life to the theatrical artistic culture in the region, but it also served as a place of assembly for those who were dedicated to the social issues in Ponce and in Puerto Rico as a whole. It served this function both at the end of the Spanish regime and in Puerto Rico's early years as a United States territory. In this theater, in 1901, Frenchman Eduardo Hervet showed the first

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

ever to be run in Puerto Rico.''Historia del Cine en Puerto Rico: la llegada del cine Puertorriqueño: Nuestro primer acercamiento al cine.''
Eduardo Rosado
Archived. 15 August 2009.
/ref> The theater's first illumination technical director was Félix Juan Torres Ortiz. It was significantly rebuilt by Lorenzo J. Vizcarrondo, an engineer, "a few years before" 1913, to make up for the deterioration it had suffered over years of less-than-complete upkeep. It was again reconditioned between 1977 and 1979 at a cost of over $500,000. After

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was a deadly Category 5 hurricane that devastated the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico. It is regarded as the worst natural disaster in recorded history to affect ...

it closed for a year, reopening on 1 November 2019. It was listed on the US

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on 27 September 2021 ''("La Perla Auditorium and Public Library")''.

Capacity and museum

The theater has a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 1,047 and is now a regular venue for

concerts A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide variet ...

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

plays Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

, and various civic and educational activities such as school graduations. The lobby of the theater has a small

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

dedicated to the history of the building and past shows.

Prominent events

Teatro La Perla has been host to several significant events, among them: * 7–9 March 1887: political assembly that gave birth to the Puerto Rico Autonomist Party. * 16 April 1896:

Juan Morel Campos Juan Morel Campos (16 May 1857 – 12 May 1896), sometimes erroneously spelled ''Juan Morell Campos'', was a Puerto Rican composer, considered by many to be responsible for taking the genre of danza to its highest level. He composed over ...

suffers a stroke while performing on stage and died three weeks later * February 1987: inauguration of the ''Festival de Teatro Luis Torres Nadal''Carmelo Rosario Natal. ''Ponce En Su Historia Moderna: 1945-2002.'' Published by Secretaría de Cultura y Turismo of the Government of the Autonomous Municipality of Ponce. Ponce, Puerto Rico. 2003. p. 148.

Notes

References

External links

Picture of the Theatre

Information on various sites of Ponce

Damage to Teatro La Perla by the 1918 earthquake

Photo of Teatro La Perla in 1910, looking ENE
{{DEFAULTSORT:Teatro La Perla Theatres completed in 1864 Theatres completed in 1940 Neoclassical architecture in Puerto Rico Music venues in Puerto Rico Theatres in Ponce, Puerto Rico Concert halls in Puerto Rico Music venues in Ponce, Puerto Rico Opera houses in Puerto Rico National Register of Historic Places in Ponce, Puerto Rico