Teatre Principal d'Alacant

The Teatre Principal d'Alacant began with a group of local merchants and property owners who met in September 1845 to push for a new theatre to replace the old one, which could no longer serve a growing city. Construction of what was then called Teatro Nuevo started in January 1846, designed by architect Emilio Jover Perrón, who trained at the Real Academia de San Fernando and served as Alicante's municipal architect. The building opened on 25 September 1847 and, over the following years, was renamed first Teatro de Alicante and then Teatro Principal, the name it still carries.

Jover Perrón worked in a neoclassical style, with six Doric columns and a triangular pediment with a plain tympanum on the façade. Inside, the theatre follows the Italian layout typical of the period: a lobby, a horseshoe-shaped stalls area ringed by boxes, and an Italian-style stage, with seating for 1,072 people. It has been the city's main theatre venue since it opened and still runs a season of opera, dance, drama and classical music.

A building in the historic centre

The Teatre Principal sits a short walk from other landmarks in central Alicante: Casa Carbonell and the Explanada, the Mercado Central, and the Concatedral de San Nicolás de Bari, so it's easy to cover much of the city's 19th- and 20th-century heritage on foot in one afternoon. It's worth checking the programme even for visitors not planning to attend a show, since the lobby and stalls are sometimes opened to the public for guided visits and open days.