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The current Tivoli Theater is the heir of the old Tivoli Gardens, inaugurated in 1847, next to the Paseo de Gracia, in an undeveloped area outside the walls, next to the Prado Catalán.
In 1848 Bernardo Agustín de Las Casas, owner of a land located a few meters from Paseo de Gracia and, subsequently, Serafí Pitarra’s father-in-law, seeing the possibilities of the place, asked the Municipality for permission to build, between the current Consejo de Ciento streets y Valencia, Tivoli Gardens.
The urbanization of the Paseo de Gracia and the disappearance of the gardens along its path made Bernat-Agustí decide in 1869 to build a wooden theater where he could also perform zarzuela performances.
In 1880, given the reception of the public, it was decided to create a theater of representation, which was the basis of the current one
Barcelona and Paseo de Gracia had undergone a major transformation and the theater had consolidated, so Bernat and his family thought of making a global reform to adapt it to the times.
In 1917, a company called Tívoli SA, promoted by Joaquim Cabot, took over ownership of the premises and agreed to build a new building.
On January 8, 1918, the last show was held in the old theater, with a zarzuela by Pablo Luna. The wonder of Damascus and the farce of Santiago Rusiñol, good peoplea poetic recital by Enric Borràs and songs by Amalia de Isaura.
Sara Baras during her Voces show at the Tivoli Theater.
The new theater was built on a project by Miquel Modorell i Rius, it consisted of a ground floor and three floors, crowned by a walkable flat roof. The lower part was dedicated to the theater and the rest to the offices, with a different entrance framed by two slender columns.
On the ground floor, after the entrance hall, there were the lockers. Inside, a spectacular lobby room, decorated by Madorell, Salvador Alarma and Oleguer Junyent, from which the imperial stairs led to the club and amphitheater.
Throughout the set there were many moldings and plant motifs in golden color
Like the entire theater, the stalls have the shape of a horseshoe with boxes on the sides decorated in shades of gold and the seats throughout the hall upholstered in a reddish tone. In the background, red velvet curtains hide the stage 22 meters wide, 23 meters high and 15 meters deep, created by Salvador Alarma.
On the façade, built in the classicist style, the first two floors had the same style of the windows with the only difference that, on the first floor, its upper end was rectangular, and on the second it ended with semicircular arches. The third and top floor had nine rectangular windows, with stone balustrades.
The windows did not maintain the harmony between them with respect to the horizontality, but kept it between the two floors. On the ground floor, in the entrance area to the theater, a glass canopy was built, supported by an iron frame, to protect spectators from possible bad weather.
It had a capacity of 1,643 spectators, which gave it the distinction of having one of the largest capacities of the time, distributed between the stalls, the club and the amphitheater, as well as a series of side boxes, in which there were abundant gold – colored moldings and seats (as was then mandatory), in a deep red color.
It was inaugurated on May 20, 1919, with the performance of Seasons, opera composed by Franz Joseph Haydn, performed by Orfeó Català. Subsequently, the theater company of María Guerrero was presented, representing the work of Eduardo Marquina In Flanders the sun has set. The collection of the deed was dedicated to the hospitals of San Pablo and Clínico.
Act of Nazi Germany in the old theater of Tivoli.
From theater to cinema
During the period of the Spanish Civil War it was the seat of the socialized opera company. At the end of the conflict, he continued to represent operas and zarzuela until the company Juan Martínez Penas presented the opera in three acts of the master Arrieta, Marina. In the same advertisement The vanguardannounced the opening of the new film season, with the premiere of the Marx Brothers film duck soup.
With the appearance of James Bond 007, a film from the series was premiered every year at Christmas
The musical ‘Singing in the rain’, at the Tívoli Theater in Barcelona.
The controversy jumped in 1990, when The vanguard He reported that the building had been bought by the French construction company Pelége, with plans to demolish the premises and build an office building.
These were times of controversy and continuous changes of proposals that were not accepted by the people of Barcelona. The beginning of the possible solution took place on the morning of January 31, 1994, when a terrible fire destroyed the Gran Teatro del Liceo.
This circumstance opened the possibility of moving the opera season to the Tivoli Theater. After two years of novelty and contradictions, again The vanguardon February 10, 1996, he broke the big news: the premises had been acquired by the Balañá company, which had agreed with Focus on the return of cinema and the survival of one of the most historic theaters in the city.
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