Teatro Nacional São João

When fire gutted Porto’s grand opera house in 1908, architect José Marques da Silva rebuilt it in the Beaux-Arts style, only to watch it become a cinema for decades. The São João, Porto’s first purpose-built theatre, opened in 1798 and spent much of the 20th century screening films rather than staging operas, until the state intervened in 1992. It reopened in 1920, reportedly with a performance of Verdi’s Aida, and only traded arias for movie reels twelve years later, in 1932. Today, it’s back to its theatrical roots, having survived both flames and Hollywood.

Marques da Silva, who trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, spent twelve years turning the wreckage into an opera house modeled loosely on the Paris Opéra, complete with four Ionic columns and enough gilding to make Garnier blush. He died in 1947, forty-five years before the Portuguese state bought the building back from the projectionists and handed it its opera gloves again. The theatre got its second act. He did not get an invitation (but maybe his ghost did?).