MANAUS, Brazil — Local singer Marcia Siqueira was rehearsing at the Amazon theater in downtown Manaus, and he didn’t seem to object as England and Italy fans snapped photos and looked around in awe inside the ornate opera house, one of the jungle city’s top cultural gems.
Inaugurated in 1896 at the height of the rubber boom, the theater was built with a mixture of imported materials from Europe — marble from Carrara, Italy; cast iron from Paris; Murano glass from Venice — and local resources from the surrounding rain forest.
The theater holds an opera festival each spring.
Known for its dome of ceramic tiles painted in the colors of the Brazilian flag, the walls of the building are pink. From about 1960-90, though, the outer walls were painted in a drab gray and green in accordance with the military dictatorship of those decades.
— By Andrew Dampf — www.twitter.com/asdampf
WARM WELCOME
CURITIBA, Brazil (AP) — Hundreds of noisy Iranian football fans cheered their team Saturday as it arrived in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba for its first game of the World Cup.
For one man of faith, the joy highlighted how football can bring people together in a way that religion and politics often don’t.
“They are chanting my country, that for sure has special feeling,” said local Sheikh Mohammed Sadegh Ibrahimi. “Now you can see Iranians, Iraqis, Brazilians, Slovenians, Polish, all together.”
Curitiba has a significant Muslim population, and the Sheikh’s mosque is renowned in the world of Islam.
Most of the crowd seemed to be local. Some of the supporters had come from outside of Iran, which has been isolated over its nuclear program.
Iran is currently in talks with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany about lifting crippling economic sanctions. Last November, an interim deal saw an easing of some sanctions in exchange for limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment program. The agreement was intended to buy time for the negotiation of a comprehensive deal.
Iran’s football team has struggled at times to arrange friendlies. On Monday, the Iranians, like Nigeria, will be looking for their first win in the World Cup since 1998.
— Pan Pylas — www.twitter.com/PanPylas
LANGUAGE BARRIER
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil (AP) — France coach Didier Deschamps looked perplexed, a crease growing bigger on his forehead as he listened to questions in English during his news conference previewing Sunday’s match against Honduras.