ANGELA PERALTA THEATER

In August of 1869, Blond the Manuel industralist, presented/displayed a request to the City council of Mazatlán to construct a theater in the city.

The port had counted with other theaters like the "Joy", and at that same time the one "Of the Recreation" worked. Nevertheless, the one of Blonde looked for to respond to the Buenosairean pretensions of a space "to the height of the mercantile and political importance" that Mazatlán showed then like capital of state and economic center of the West of the country. The construction began that same year under the direction of the Engineer of the City, Ruined Mud wall.

In support to the work, the City council of Mazatlán, decided to reduce to Blonde the payment to him of municipal taxes during twenty years, counted from the conclusion of the construction.

Of inaugurations and taxes

Manuel Rubiot died in a shipwreck, when one went to Paris with the intention to bring from Europe decorated for the theater. It did not reach to see finished its work, but its widow, Doña Vicenta Unzueta, it continued the construction until its inauguration.

In little more than five years than it took its construction, the investment, that originally had calculated in $30,000.00 (thirty thousand pesos), was duplicated in around $70.000 (seventy thousand pesos). The 15 of February of 1874, had even though not been placed all the handrails of the balconies, the theater was inaugurated with the presentation of "the Bell of Almudaina" and "the House of Field", in charge of the Spanish Company of Mariano Luque.

Immediately, the widow of Rubio, that became position of the theater, asked for to the municipal government the fulfillment of the decree of exemption of taxes. The City council refused arguing that the theater was not finished in its totality and that the annexed house had stopped being house to room of the Blond family, to become the Iturbide Hotel.

Through a long litigation, Doña Vicenta Unzueta was forced to sell the building three years after her opening. The property of the theater and the one of the Iturbide Hotel were acquired by Juan Baptist Hernandez, partner of the Spanish company/signature Hernandez Mendía and Asociados, with interests in the port.

Before the requirements of the town hall for the payment of taxes, the new owners alluded immediately to the agreement of 1869 exemption, and obtained a favorable reduction in the amount of the contributions, instead of the $43.000,00 (forty and three thousand pesos) demanded by the authorities, paid only $10.000,00 (ten thousands).

Between 1879 and 1881 important works were made to conclude the faltantes details in the building and to turn it a luxurious theater. The remodeling of "windows, doors and balconies, in addition to other fundamental repairs" was in charge of Santiago Leon Astengo. Of the escenográficos drop curtains and other decorations position became the painter Juan Go'mez. With 1366 localities and the best advances of the time, the theater was inaugurated, for the second time, the 6 of February of 1881, opportunity in which a concert of the students of song of the Teacher Manuel Cataño appeared.

Of uses, landmarks and resurgences From its opening to 1940, the Blond theater was scene of all type of cultural manifestations and spectacles like operas, zarzuelas, civic dramas, acts, functions of circus, box and fights frees. Also it served during a time for carnavaleros events of calculation made to choose to the queens and for dances of mascaritas

The registered most important event in the history of the theater, peculiarly did not happen in him, but in the bordering Hotel. In August of 1883, in fourth number 10 of the Iturbide Hotel, it died the diva Ángela Peralta, "the Mexican ruiseñor", victim of an epidemic of yellow fever, of which she was infected during an artistic tour by the northwest of Mexico. That death marked to the history of the theater and the one of the cultural life of Mazatlán. 1943, the Blond Theater became the Cinema Ángela Peralta, same that operated until 1964.
Soon, the building remained closed by five years. Already deteriorated and in frank abandonment, it was used to present/display a spectacle of Burlesque, during the 1969 carnival.

In spite of the significant efforts of different groups from mazatlecos citizens to reopen it, the building of the Blond Theater, now known as Theater Ángela Peralta, stayed at the mercy of the nature, becoming ruins after twenty years without use. In 1987, against the will of the then owners, the municipal authorities decided to rehabilitate the building.

Thus it initiated the reconstruction process, that included the negotiation for the acquisition of the building. End and happily the proceedings and the remodeling culminated the 23 of October of 1992 when, by third time, east theater was inaugurated.