Manila Grand Opera House

The Manila Grand Opera House was a theater and opera house located in the Santa Cruz district of Manila on the intersection of Rizal Avenue and Doroteo Jose Street. First built in the mid-19th century as a circular wooden structure with a nipa roof known as the H.T. Hashim’s National Cycle Track, the complex served as the center of Philippine culture and the primary theater for the viewing of plays, movies and zarzuelas in Manila prior to the construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the 1960s. The complex had undergone several incarnations and name changes before being demolished. A hotel has since been constructed on the site on where the theater once stood.HistoryThe Manila Grand Opera House was built in the mid-19th century as the H.T. Hashim’s National Cycle Track, a circular wooden structure with a nipa roof. In 1890, the name was changed to the Teatro Nacional (National Theater), where the Russian Circus and some American theater companies performed. The name was subsequently changed to the Manila Grand Opera House after an extensive expansion of the original theater and its conversion to an opera house in time for the visit of an Italian opera company in 1902, after the American takeover of the Philippines, and was used as the location of the inauguration of the members of the First Philippine Assembly on October 16, 1907.It was in Manila Grand Opera House where the Philippines' pioneer symphonic group, the Manila Symphony Society, performed its first concert on January 22, 1926. The purpose of the concert was to raise funds for the building of the Philippine Constabulary Orchestra's music library.