The craftsman threads a fine natural hair through the tiny hole in a net and ties it with a needle. Hair by hair he sews a wig for the opera Carmen. The work takes two weeks. In the end, the performer on stage can comb their hair as if it were their own hair, in a one-of-a-kind bespoke piece. It is difficult to imagine in which parallel world this enormous effort is worthwhile. The answer lies underground, in the workshops of the Colón, the largest lyrical theater in Latin America and one of the last in the world that still makes scenery, costumes, wigs and even shoes in its workshops.
430 people work in the cellars of the Colón every day. It is a municipal theater with 56,000 square meters of covered space, more than five superimposed blocks in the heart of Buenos Aires, 20,000 of which are dedicated to workshops, stretching under Avenida 9 de Julio, meters from the obelisk. Carpenters, blacksmiths, sculptors, painters, shoemakers, hairdressers, make-up artists, tailors, electricians work there. This nameless army stands behind those who, after each performance, clasp their hands in front of their chests and ecstatically surrender to the audience’s applause. Going down the stairs into the bowels of the Colón, you can feel the smell of aged leather and virgin fabrics, hear the industrial noise of the sewing machines or the hammer blows of someone driving a nail. Also the silence of those who focus on the details, like the one who weaves the wig or sets the beads of a necklace.
The director of the Teatro Colón, Jorge Telerman, in one of the corridors of the venue in Buenos Aires on June 9, 2022. SILVINA FRYDLEWSKY
Knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. And everyone speaks passionately. Like María Eugenia Palafox, who in her office takes care of a lace-up wig once worn by the great Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, or a headdress that adorned the head of Maria Callas. Palafox has been in the Colon for 25 years. In the aisles of the warehouse he opens boxes, shows headdresses and wigs and raves about the white yak manes that the theater bought for the white hairpieces. “They come from Tibet, they are gold dust,” he says, stroking the long hair like a little puppy. “White hair is very hard to come by, so we use yak hair from belly to tail, which can be up to a meter long. If cared for properly, it can be used for many years,” he explains.
Eugenia Palafox in one of the underground workshops of the Teatro Colón, on June 3, 2022. SILVINA FRYDLEWSKY
One floor down, Blanca Villalaba moves between the shelves, which are stacked with 20,000 pairs of shoes, leather belts of all eras and styles, and even military backpacks. There are numbered boots, heels and gladiator sandals. Villalba has been making shoes since he was 16, and at 67 he was smitten with some basketball shoes made by the workshop he ran for Gaetano Donizettiel’s opera El elixir de amor. The Colón doesn’t customize street shoes for its artists: it makes them from scratch, at a rate of about 500 a year, Villalba warns. “New shoes are made for the first characters. The rest is recycled: the color is changed, they are cleaned and elements are added or removed. Leather can be painted and unpainted many times,” he says.
In the warehouse there are large shelves for towns and choirs and others, where some classic pieces are on display, such as the sandal worn by the Spaniard Plácido Domingo when he played Samson in the 1997 opera Samson and Delilah. Always working against the clock, in a hurry for the release date. In the cellars of the Colón there are no excuses for a broken machine or a sick workman. Carlos Pérez, Head of Tailoring, reiterates several times that the main challenge is to respect the calendar. In doing so, they have to face the fear of the costume designers, the delays of the suppliers and the ego of the first artists, who usually arrive from abroad at the limit of the premiere.
“There are complicated clothes and also complicated characters,” says Pérez, who grew up in a family of tailors between cloth and scissors. Today he looks after almost 50 people from the Colón. “For Falstaff came (the Italian baritone) Ambrogio (Maestri), who has a special physique. Almost two meters, 200 kilos, complicated. Ambrosio told us that it was the first time that the clothes fit him, that they fit him well fitted and there was no touching,” he says with a smile on his face. Then he goes through dozens of metal closets and opens the doors at random, takes out a hanger and takes out the dress for the photo. That’s what he calculates in this labyrinth Since the 1990s, 80,000 pieces of clothing have accumulated, thirty when the Colón stopped “importing” the sunsets and decided to become a culture factory.
“On May 25, 1908, the building was inaugurated and on May 25, 1925, the Colón as we know it, with its workshops and casts, was completed,” says Jorge Telerman, director of the Teatro Colón. He is seated in a red velvet armchair in the theatre’s Golden Hall, a vast room inspired by the mirrors of the Palace of Versailles. “From 1925, the Colón ceased to be a sounding board for foreign products and began to consider the activity as Argentine cultural politics,” he says. Over time, the Colón has become a reflection of Argentina’s cultural aspirations. “Colón is loved even if he does not come because it is still the place where we draw strength to say that this is possible. It’s a place where great miracles are possible,” says Telerman.
Bringing a gold Cadillac onto the stage can be amazing. Or that for Verdi’s opera Nabucco, on the bill today, a gigantic Möbius strip hangs on the lattice. The next play, Elixir de Amor, staged by Enrique Bordolini on a small street basketball court, will be concocted in the stage design workshops. For safety reasons, the machinery had to be removed from the theater and today the painters, sculptors and carpenters work in the Chacarita neighborhood, half an hour’s drive from the theater. There is no room for trifles here. Saws screech and sawdust flies; the welders make sparks and the sculptors make a Venus de Milo out of styrofoam. Bordolini went through the workshops as a set designer, but also as general director of scenography at the Teatro Colón. He is responsible for ensuring that all machines work.
“The Colón is one of the few Latin American theaters that has its own workshops and does 100% of the production. It is a standard that is being lost around the world and fortunately in the Colón we have the artisans and workshops to continue making it,” explains Bordolini. The result is a meticulous end product, the result of the art of a melting pot of guilds. “The theater is characterized by quality because we have a good workforce. La Scala in Milan and we are among the best,” Antonio Gallelli, who has been at the theater for 60 years, is convinced. Today he is 80 and coordinates the stage work. But it is also the living memory of Columbus. He remembers when he got into his sixties and the sets were painted on canvas or paper, the secret to up to 25 works coexisting each season. And that in the workshops Italian was mainly spoken, just as he had brought it with him as a youth on the ship to America.
Antonio Gallelli, in the joinery of the Teatro Colón, on June 8, 2022. Silvina Frydlewsky
The Colón is an art factory and also a school. Gallelli estimates that it takes at least 10 years to learn the craft in the workshops; and that luckily there are enough young people to keep the tradition going. “It takes time because you don’t always do the same thing. Today you build a house, tomorrow a boat, then an airplane. In the Colón,” he says, “we’ve achieved everything.”