The Campoamor Theatre is Oviedo's opera house, founded in 1892 and known for hosting, among other events, the Princess of Asturias Awards Ceremony. It was born in Oviedo in response to the need for a setting to stage operas and theatrical performances due to the incipient economic bourgeoisie that was beginning to emerge in the capital. Until then, performances were staged in the Fontán theatre, next to the square of the same name, which is now the Ramón Pérez de Ayala Library of Asturias.
It was located in the grounds of the convent of Santa Clara, behind Calle de Uría, which had been planned a couple of decades earlier. In 1876, with José Longoria Carbajal as mayor, the project for the construction of the theatre was presented and completed in 1883. At the proposal of the writer and then councillor Leopoldo Alas "Clarín", it was baptised with the surname of the famous Asturian Ramón de Campoamor, who was unable to attend the inauguration, to which he sent his brother and as an act of gratitude to the people of Oviedo he sent a thousand pesetas for distribution among the poor of the city, the town council distributing the money among the four existing parishes at a rate of 250 pesetas for each one.
The theatre was opened to the public on 17 September 1892 with a performance of the play The Huguenots by Giacomo Meyerbeer. This work was followed by 'Lucia de Lammermoor', an opera which was also presented in the I opera season in Oviedo, in 1948, and was also performed on the 120th anniversary. It is the oldest opera season in Spain, second only to that of the Gran Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona.
The first major refurbishment took place in 1916 with a restructuring of the interior and an increase in seating capacity. During the Revolution of 1934, the theatre suffered extensive damage and was reduced to rubble, with only the main façade remaining standing. After the end of the Civil War, reconstruction and renovation of the theatre began and it reopened its doors in September 1948 with the opera Manón.
Under the Plaza del Carbayón and Calle 19 de Julio, protecting the roots of the oak tree with a large planter, the theatre was equipped with modern dressing rooms, a rehearsal room, tailor's shop, hairdressing salon, props room, workshops and rooms for the stage crew. The lighting and sound of the stage box are controlled from here. The former dressing rooms located on the rear façade of the building became the headquarters of the Department of Culture of Oviedo City Council.
In 1993 the multi-purpose hall in the basement was transformed into the Centro de Arte Moderno Ciudad de Oviedo (CAMCO). Since 2004, it has been managed by Cajastur, where you can periodically see exhibitions of modern and avant-garde art.
Nowadays, after having undergone several technical modernisation works over the last two decades, the theatre is still fully operational, and among the many events held there, the Oviedo opera season and the now defunct Teatro Campoamor Lyric Awards, among others, are worthy of mention.