Jonathan Watts – The Guardian, 06/09/2013
When the heart of the Amazon was among the richest places on Earth, local rubber barons flaunted their incredible wealth by building a spectacular opera house in Manaus with British steel, French glass and Italian marble.
At great expense, they shipped construction materials across the Atlantic and down the Rio Negro, then filled their new venue in the forest with the world’s leading musicians and conductors.
Even by the standards of the late 19th-century Belle Epoque, some considered this an extravagant folly. But those behind the scheme saw themselves as pushing back the boundaries of their civilisation.
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