At the end of April, the Lagoinha Baptist Church announced its new “home” in Rio: the old Teatro Leblon, which was auctioned for R$9 million. The property occupies a gallery in the Terrasse Center building, which, in addition to commercial space, has two blocks of flats on a treelined street in the area with the most expensive square meter in the country.
Artists and producers lamented the closure of the cultural space, a tragedy announced years ago as a result of the crisis in the industry. But it was news that the property could be converted into a church that outraged residents of the Terrasse Centre. In WhatsApp groups, they commented on the inconveniences that the temple would bring: difficulties parking the car on the street, hymns at the services and “confusion” in the neighborhood. Some even complained that it was a church attended by Jair Bolsonaro and his wife Michelle.
“Look what the hell,” summarizes retired Claudia Lima, 64, a resident of the building. She says she liked the convenience of having a theater just a few floors from her home and went there often during the playhouse’s heyday. One of the last plays he saw there was actress Clarice Niskier’s monologue “A Alma Imoral,” based on the book by Rabbi Nilton Bonder. He also remembers the 2008 montage “Beatles Num Céu de Diamantes” directed by Charles Möeller and Claudio Botelho.
“Leblon is becoming a lowculture neighborhood, and the closure of the theater is further proof of that,” he says. “You walk down the street and there is just a restaurant, a bar and a pharmacy. It’s a restaurant, bar and church now, isn’t it?” The retiree was one of the residents who turned up their noses at the inauguration of Lagoinha in the neighborhood that’s a symbol of Rio’s elite. “Imagine a church here, imagine the audience that’s going to visit this space,” she said, who declined to elaborate on what type of “audience” she’s targeting for fear of sounding “biased.” related.
Ticket office closed at Sala Marília Pêra in Leblon: “It’s becoming a neighborhood with little culture”
Image: Camille Lichotti 
Crusade against the cult
Local residents organized a petition against the construction of the church on the site and called on the building authorities to take action. She called the condominium attorney to assess the situation.
Attorney Marcos Moura Messias explained that the condominium agreement only allows for commercial and residential activities at the Terrasse Center which does not apply to religious temple services. “The condominium has no power to regulate who buys the property, so the land belongs to the buyer, there’s no objection to that,” he explains. “We make sure condominium rules are followed.”
In his opinion, Lagoinha can take the matter to court, but it will probably not succeed because the building convention does not violate any constitutional law it just does not provide for the practice of religious services. The consent of twothirds of the apartment owners is required to change the internal regulation.
Photo of the actress Marília Pêra in the former Leblon Theater sold to the Lagoinha Church
Image: Camille Lichotti
Apparently Lagoinha bought the property with the intention of offering services there. On Instagram, the church posted a video of members walking through the theater introducing the Marília Pêra hall as its new branch in Rio’s South Zone. Currently the Church carries out its activities in another old theater in the region: the Clara Nunes Theater in Gávea, which is rented.
Attorney Marcos Moura Messias said Lagoinha has not yet contacted the building’s administration to resolve the impasse or seek comment on the impossibility of holding services at the gallery. searched by tabThe Church did not manifest itself either.
The attorney’s analysis reassured retiree Claudia Lima and residents opposed to the temple’s arrival. “We know that the Church cannot repent. Only if she opens a saint’s shop, but believers don’t believe in pictures, do they?” says the local resident. “I think they make a lot of money.”
Led by the Valadão clan since 1972, the church grew exponentially in the 2000s, with the success of the band Diante do Trono. Today it represents the future of the evangelical movement in Brazil: with a rightwing ideological profile, it has around 700 units in 14 countries.
“Leblon Needs God”
Manicurist Lucineide Maximiliano, 51, who works in a salon in the gallery a few meters from the Leblon theater, hopes the church will find a loophole in the rules. She says she is delighted at the news of the sale of the theater to Lagoinha, which is an “enormous church”. “Leblon needs God, and that will call people to listen to the Word of God,” she says, affirming that some of her clients feel the same way.
Lucineide lives in Jacarepaguá, in the west of the city, and has never seen a play neither at the Teatro Leblon nor anywhere else. “I separate the things of God from the things of the world. I prefer to do things for God,” he explains. From the Marília Pêra room, his only memories are those of the opening nights of the shows, which featured cocktails and parties. “These rich things,” he summarizes.
Lucineide attends the Assembly of God but, along with colleagues from the Salon, rejoiced at the opportunity to attend the Lagoinha services close to where she works. “Here [no Leblon] People are very vain and money oriented. “You walk down the street and you see everyone at the bar smoking in your face and looking at you the wrong way,” comments the manicurist, who has worked in the neighborhood for over 30 years. “There really needs to be more churches here.”
Now Lucineide says that “it’s just a matter of prayer” that Lagoinha actually inhabits the property. “That theater didn’t even work properly, it was better to give it a good aim.”
The Fernanda Montenegro room in the same theater has been closed since 2017
Image: Camille Lichotti
Coming and going in Pindaíba
In 2017, the Teatro Leblon was threatened with closure for the first time. The “Tônia Carrero” hall had been closed for a year due to a financial crisis and the manager could not afford the costs for the two remaining halls, which bear the names of actresses Fernanda Montenegro and Marília Pêra.
At the time, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God expressed an interest in purchasing the property, but business did not prosper.
As a relief to breathe life into the theater, the actors Marcos Caruso, Mateus Solano and Miguel Thiré brought the plays “O Escândalo Philippe Dussaert” and “Selfie” to the theater. Producer Carlos Grun, in charge of production, said at the time that the specific measure would not save the establishment, but was a call for help from the art world.
The request was harmless. The Marília Pêra room was closed most of the time until it was sponsored by the PetraGold Group in 2019. The chairs, the equipment and the structure have all been renovated.
The pandemic came and the space functioned in leaps and bounds, as did virtually all of culture. The producers in charge even organized remote plays and distributed social tickets, but the end was imminent. In mid2022, PetraGold withdrew its sponsorship and the theater was once again “orphaned”. It was finally sold without the help of representatives of the cultural industry.
This wasn’t the first time Lagoinha used the decadence of the cultural sector to do business. In addition to renting the Clara Nunes Theater, the Church also dedicated a temple in February this year on the site formerly occupied by Ita Music, the only concert hall in the Rio metropolitan city of Itaboraí.
Success that never comes back
72yearold hairstylist Nazir de Oliveira, who works at another of the gallery’s beauty salons, believes the theatrical crisis isn’t unique to Leblon: it’s a phenomenon across Rio.
“Today it’s even difficult to find a theater, it wasn’t like that in the past,” she recalls. In her youth, the hairdresser took part in theater clubs and, accompanied by her cousin, visited rooms in different parts of the city. “We dressed up to go to the theater, we put on new clothes and everything. We had fun. I saw the best actors on stage, even Antônio Fagundes.”
Nazir prefers to remember the thriving days of Teatro Leblon, when queues snaked through the gallery corridors scenes from a past she believes will never come back. “We are all very sad here. Every theater that closes is a small work of art that dies.”