At that time, Émile Doux (1798–1876), the French actor, director, playwright and impresario who worked in Portugal and was the director of another Lisbon theatre, the Teatro da Rua dos Condes, sent an application to Queen D. Maria II, together with the rich businessman, the Count of Farrobo, requesting permission to turn the building into a theatre.

After conversion, the theatre had an elliptical shape, with boxes on four levels, consisting of 54 for the general public, 3 for the royal family (for which fees were paid), and 2 belonging to the owners.

Later it would also present comedy, vaudeville, comic opera, dance, orchestral concerts, magic shows and even circus performances.

It starred Emília das Neves, Portugal’s leading actress of the time, as Adrienne and was directed by Émile Doux.

This inevitably led to overwork by Neves, something that began to be noticed by the theatre reviewers in the Lisbon press.

The new Society concentrated on comic opera and was immediately successful, confirming the views of critics that the repertoire presented by Doux had lacked variety.

[4] To address its financial difficulties the Society went on a tour of the provinces and invited a French company to use the theatre from March 1851.

However, after an event at the theatre involving aggressive behaviour to the audience by one of the actors, the public began to boycott the Spanish company.

The theatre was then taken over by José Détry, a Frenchman who had been living in Lisbon for many years and had founded the city's gas lighting company in 1846.

[4] From 21 July 1855, the theatre was occupied by a group of actors brought together by the businessman António Pedro Barreto de Saldanha.

December 1855 brought the first play, a comedy, by the noted Portuguese playwright José Maria Brás Martins to be performed at the D. Fernando, the beginning of a fruitful collaboration.