Teresa Fuster.
Editorial Antigua. Buenos Aires. 2022.
Quarto (23 x 15.8 cm), 152 pp. Paperback publisher binding.
The bond between our city and the theater is profound, to the point where this passionate relationship ends, with Buenos Aires on the podium of the world's cities with the most theaters. The researcher Teresa Fuster intends to briefly unfold the history of this artistic genre in the city by describing the most important theaters that have ennobled it over a period of just over two centuries.
The arc begins with the first theatrical performances, two comedies by Calderón de la Barca performed on an improvised stage that was set up in the Fort of Buenos Aires in 1747. It continues with the first theaters built in the city. The Theater of Operas and Comedies established in 1757 and the House of Comedy, also known as the Ranchería Theater or the Corral de las Comedias, built in 1783 by decision of Viceroy Vértiz. And at the other end of the arch and already in the twentieth century, the erection of the Teatro Nuevo, that is to say, the Municipal Theater of Buenos Aires, named in 1950 on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the Liberator as Teatro General San Martín, and the Teatro Gran Rex, built in 1937, designed by the architect Prebisch, the same one who drew the Buenos Aires obelisk.
For lovers of theater, but also of architecture, heritage photography and the history of the city of Buenos Aires, this book is a very good reference source. An enjoyable read, it is supported by rigorous research and documentation, and with the added bonus of being profusely illustrated.
Teresa Fuster has a degree in History, a High School and High School Teacher, a Specialist in Colonial History and a Member of the Argentine Academy of Communication Arts and Sciences.
The Ranchería Theater, gouache by Léonie Matthis, c. 1938. National Institute of Theater Studies.