The Teatro Municipal de Valencia was inaugurated in 1894 during the coffee-and-cocoa boom that gave the city much of its nineteenth-century character. The architect Antonio Malaussena designed a small Italianate auditorium in a stripped neoclassical building with a portico, classical pediment and tiered loggia inside — a Caracas-scale theatre dropped into a provincial capital.
The theatre is still in regular use for concerts, theatre, and ballet, and the foyer galleries display photographs and posters from a century of programming. Tickets are inexpensive and the acoustics, after a series of restorations, are surprisingly good. The street outside has a row of small cafés and areperías useful for a pre-show meal.