All the steps that followed the fire (those of Louis Judge, Daniel Giacomino y Ramon Mestre) tried to raise the curtain on the City theater again. Even before the pandemic, in 2017, an agreement signed between the governor Juan Schiaretti y Ramon Mestre injected 60 million pesos into the Municipality to recover the theater –through which figures of the stature of Ana Maria Campoy, Mariano Mores y Jose Cibrianamong others–, with the aim of making it ready to be one of the headquarters of the International Spanish Language Congress (Cile), in 2019.
However, none of the efforts ended up taking that opening as a flag. Now, 16 years after that fateful incident, the comedy theater is days away from raising the curtain again: this iconic cultural space will be reopened within the framework of the 450 years of the city, on July 6.
a new theater. With capacity for 494 spectators, the new Comedia is designed as a cultural complex: “In addition to the main room, there is a multipurpose room that has a capacity for about 80 people, where dramatic readings, small concerts, talks, performances and presentations, and an outdoor deck that can hold about 30 people and will have smaller-scale activities. This does not mean, of course, that all the activities are simultaneous because there is a logistics of public circulation that must be met, but the idea is that simultaneous activities can eventually occur,” he explained to CORDOBA PROFILE Leandro Oloccobrand new director of the new Comedy Theatre.
In effect, the Comedia is the only municipal theater that has the characteristics to do theater with text and scenery: “We want the theater to be oriented towards the performing arts in general -music, theatre, dance, performance–; It will have programming from the municipal stable bodies but it will also articulate with private producers so that they can program, always with an artistic criterion approved by the theater management, of course.
The director also adds that the accent will naturally be placed on the local scene because it is a theater for the city and he will seek expression from the quartet and independent theater to the stable casts themselves, but he also wants to have a national and international projection.
The space will also host other cultural events in the city such as the Book Fair or the Mercosur International Theater Festival, to name a few.
the foyer. Another of the fundamental spaces of the Comedia will be the foyer, which will house an exhibition at the opening but will also be used for activities that will overflow onto the street. “The sample that will be at the opening is from Francisco ‘Pupito’ Rivillihe was one of the most important owners of the Comedy and we are going to exhibit the archive on the history of the theater, which was founded in 1913 and was called theater odeon.
Then in ’20 it was renamed Comedia and was in private hands until 2005, when it passed into the hands of the Municipality. The theater has a long private history and the Rivilli family has been the protagonist”, says Olocco and points out that other exhibitions will be added to the entrance space later.
Opening. The official opening will take place this Wednesday the 5th with a Gala for the 450th Anniversary of the City of Córdoba, while on Thursday the 6th of July the delivery of the Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera Awards. “Then, on July 7, 8 and 9 there will be functions open to the public, on Sunday the 9th with a double function. And the following week there will be functions of the stable cast from Tuesday to Sunday, thinking about the winter holidays”, Olocco details.
The renovated theater will have functions from Thursday to Sunday, although the management assures that functions may eventually be added on Wednesdays.
CONSERVATION. The original appearance of historical elements such as the side walls, columns and beams have been maintained, thus preserving its essence.