This week’s dream: opera on the edge of the Amazon
Founded by the Portuguese in 1669 to defend their Amazonian possessions from the British and Dutch, the Brazilian city of Manaus celebrates its 350th anniversary this year. At the height of its prosperity in the late 19th century, local rubber barons gilded it with “belle époque splendour” – and though its fortunes collapsed not long after, there are still “pastel shadows” of the past in this engaging city, says Mark Stratton in The Sunday Telegraph. Perched on the banks of the Rio Negro where it flows into the Amazon, Manaus sits around 900 miles – a six-day river voyage, or a two-hour flight – from the coastal city of Belém. Cabins on public riverboats are “small and cramped”, but sightings of pink river dolphins and other wildlife cheer the journey up.
After the riverboat diet of chicken, rice and beans, the food at the Hotel Villa Amazônia is a treat – with “divine” ceviche, and “milky” cupuaça juice at breakfast. The city’s architectural glories include a glass-and-iron market hall designed by Gustave Eiffel in the 1880s, and “decaying” boulevards from the same era.
Its best-known building, however, is its “blancmange-pink” opera house, which opened in 1897 and attracted some of the world’s greatest singers. When the local planters were ruined by competition from British rubber plantations in southeast Asia, its fortunes crashed too, and it closed around 1924. Six decades on, however, Werner Herzog featured it in his film
Fitzcarraldo, about a crazed, operaloving would-be rubber baron. This helped revive international interest in the building, and it finally reopened in 1997. With Murano glass chandeliers, Carrara marble steps, wrought-iron pillars from Glasgow and intricate murals of composers, it is dizzying in its splendour, and hosts regular concerts, as well as operas in a brief annual season. Journey Latin America has an eight-day trip with a three-day cruise from £1,706pp, including flights (journeylatinamerica.co.uk).