Teatro Nacional Cervantes

The project caught the attention of both local high society and the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, who collaborated with its construction by commissioning artisanal fixtures, material and elements of stagecraft for the theatre, built accordingly in Spanish baroque style and named in honor of Spain's legendary novelist and dramatist, Miguel de Cervantes.

The Cervantes Theatre was inaugurated on September 5, 1921, with a production of Lope de Vega's La dama boba (The Foolish Lady).

The proliferation of theatres in Buenos Aires and the advent of the radio in Argentina soon eroded the Cervantes' audience base, however, and in 1926, the couple was forced to auction the institution.

Lamenting this turn of events, National Music Conservatory Assistant Director Enrique García Velloso persuaded President Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, whose wife, Regina Pacini, had been an opera chanteuse and was an avid patroness of the arts, to create the National Stage Theatre at the ailing Cervantes.

A massive fire in 1961 nearly destroyed the Cervantes, a misfortune leading to the aging house's extensive modernization, including the construction of a 17-story annex.