TEATRO DEGOLLADO

Outside, at the eastern end of the plaza, rises the timeless silhouette of the Teatro Degollado. The theater’s classic, columned facade climaxes in an epic marble frieze, depicting the allegory of Apollo and the nine muses. The Degollado’s resplendent grand salon is said to rival the gilded refinement of Milan’s renowned La Scala. Overhead, its ceiling glows with Gerardo Suárez’s panorama of canto IV of Dante’s Divine Comedy, complete with its immortal cast—Julius Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Saladin—and the robed and wreathed author himself in the middle. Named for millionaire Governor Degollado, who financed its construction, the theater opened with appropriate fanfare on September 13, 1866, with a production of Lucia de Lammermoor, starring Angela Peralta, the renowned “Mexican Nightingale.” An ever-changing menu of artists still grace the Degollado’s stage. These include an excellent local folkloric ballet troupe every Sunday morning; for information and tickets, visit or call the Degollado box office, tel. 33/3614-4773 (open daily 10 a.m.–1 p.m. and 4–7 p.m.).