Palacio de Bellas Artes ("Palace of Fine Arts")
* Snagged from Wikipedia.com.
I think that the next stop that I would want is visiting the Palacio de Bellas Artes or the Palace of Fine Arts. It is the premier opera house of Mexico City. I haven’t watched an opera in my entire life so this would be the perfect time. I have read from Wikipedia.com that the building is famous for both its extravagant Beaux Arts exterior in imported Italian Carrara white marble and its murals by Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco.
For history of the palace, check this out.
Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads” mural was originally painted for the Rockefeller Center in New York City. Rivera had finished ⅔ of the mural when the Rockefellers objected to an image of Vladimir Lenin in the mural. When Rivera refused to remove Lenin, his commission was cancelled and the mural was destroyed. Rivera repainted it a smaller scale at the Palacio in 1934 and renamed it “Man, Controller of the Universe”.The theatre is used for classical music, opera and dance, notably the “Baile Folklórico”. A distinctive feature of the theatre is its stained glass curtain depicting a volcano and the valley of Mexico. It is the home of Mexico’s National Symphony Orchestra, the Bellas Artes Orchestra, the Bellas Artes Chamber Orchestra, the National Dance Company, and the Bellas Artes Opera.
* Details from Wikipedia.com.