Teatro Colon prices

[sergio]

Just checked website of Teatro Colon. Tickets are more expensive than the Metropolitan Opera. I paid U$S 160 for a great seat (Orchestra) at a Saturday matinee (most expensive time to go). The equivalent seat at the Colon is $800 pesos.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

Sign of the times. Some years before the restoration and while hotel and flight prices were relatively low, I mused on the possibility that, if only you could fit three different operas into one week, you could have offered an opera package holiday in Buenos Aires from London for less than the cost of the opera alone at Covent Garden. Maybe there will be scope for offering Argentines a package deal at the Met before long?

 

[sergio]

I told you the price I paid a couple of months ago. If I had gone any evening Monday-Thursday I could have paid much less for the same seat.

It would be hard to offer an opera package to Europeans because of the limited number of operas at the Colon each season. Also they perform in a block (one opera repeated for a couple of weeks) as opposed to the Metropolitan Opera where there are about 6 different operas a week with a very long season. It might be possible to arrange a package that included an opera at the Teatro Argentino de la Plata, though + a concert or performance at some other venue. The problem is that the Colon has frequent strikes and disruptions.

How can the Colon charge these prices when it is a municipal theatre that receives a huge subsidy from the government?

 

[jimdepalermo]

Actually, center orchestra seats at the Met, equivalent to platea in the Colón are US$ 345 - considerably more than the Colón charges. The Met is so large that they discount side and rear orchestra seats down to $140, but these are in locations that would be in the plaza or across Tucuman in the Colón.

That said, I agree that seats in the lower levels of the Colón - those accessible through the main doors - are extremely expensive in pesos. What always surprises me is that they're fully sold, even though a pair of good seats costs the equivalent of a couple weeks' wages for the average Argentine.

If you get platea or palco seats to a "Gran Abono" performance of an opera at the Colón, you'll see the Argentine moneyed class like nowhere else I know. People come in from distant estancias dressed to the nines and wearing jewelry that they wouldn't dare show in the street. It's quite a show!

The cost of entry to the upper levels is extremely reasonable, btw, although these seats are very difficult to obtain. Sight lines are excellent in the more central sections. Even in the upper side galleries where you can't see much, the sound is incredible. The Colón has a clarity and immediacy of sound that I've never encountered in any other theater.

 

[sergio]

I paid almost exactly the same at the MET Orchestra section as I did for a seat in almost the same location of Platea at the Colon. The Colon's Platea is divided into two sections only. You can be in the first half, even quite far back or way to the side and pay the highest price. At the Met you can sit quite close to the stage but slightly to the side and pay the same as the Colon. Met tickets are cheaper Mondays-Thursdays. I agree that the Colon's sound is excellent. The Gran Abono used toibe black tie obligatory. When the crisis hit the dress code was dropped. People dress up if they want to. I doubt that many men wear evening clothes nowadays though the women would be in gowns.