SITTING ON THE STAIRS
Costa Rica’s National Theater or Opera House is a neoclassical building with a baroque interior. We were told in 1828-30 the president encouraged culture. By 1860 a budget was proposed for a theater, but there actually was no money available until 1890. Built in 1891-1897, all the materials came from Europe.
Earthquakes in 1904 and 1910 caused major damage to the building, and frequent tremors still make repair a major job. We walked up the wide staircase to view the original seats in the theater boxes. All the woods grown in Costa Rica are represented in the beautiful floors.
Sitting on the stairs so we could look at the fresco on the hallway ceiling, our guide explained, “This picture is on the back of the old five cent bill. An Italian artist painted this mural in 1897. He was given specific instructions of size and content. However, because he had never been in the tropics he made several errors in the painting.
“The first thing one notices is the coffee plants, which do not grow at sea level. Coffee only grows above an elevation of 800 feet. The fellow in the foreground is holding the bananas upside down. That is how bananas grow, but if you carried a stalk of bananas that way, they would all fall off. Ships came to the Caribbean coast not the Pacific Coast, and palm trees do not grow on the Pacific Coast. The women are all dressed European style, not in Costa Rican dress. There is no yoke on the oxen, so I wonder how they pulled a cart. But the painting was done and so it was hung.”
It is an interesting mural and it was fun to be able to view it without getting dizzy while standing and looking up. The five cent bill is no longer used but our guide managed to get one for each of us which I framed and hung in my back bedroom.
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