Teatro Sá da Bandeira

The Teatro Sá da Bandeira is the oldest performance venue in the city of Porto,[1] with a capacity for 786 people and opened in 1846, it was responsible for the first presentation of films produced in Portuguese[2] (on 12 November 1896, by Aurélio Paz dos Reis), and was converted in the first years of its opening on stage to some of the 19th century theater biggest stars,[3] such as Sarah Bernhardt, Julián Gayarre and Antonio Scalvini.

One of its most notable entrepreneurs was Afonso Taveiro, who would die of apoplexy in the theater audience, when he was directing the general rehearsal of Eduardo Schwalbach's magazine "O dia do Juízo".

Arnaldo Moreira da Rocha Brito was a great entrepreneur and a "free-thinker" who was in charge of this theater until his death in 1970, completing 60 years of management.

In March 2019, the Chamber of Porto decided to sell the theater at public auction for the base bid price of 2.190 million euros, considering that "the utility of maintaining the building in question" was exhausted".

It was purchased by Livraria Lello bookshop on 30 May 2019 for 3.5 million euros.The building includes, in addition to the theater, three stores, and has a total of five thousand square meters of covered area.