In the design and construction participated masters of work, technicians and artisans of the region, who adopted the models of nineteenth-century Romantic Theaters, with rooms in the shape of a horseshoe in the Italian style, which responded to the needs of meeting and recreation of the population. In the mid-1800s, Mazatlan had a very poor performance theater, it was called Teatro del Recreo, located right on Calle del Recreo, today Constitution between Calles Alquiles Serdan and Benito Juárez. In August of 1869, the businessman Manuel Rubio, presented a request to the City of Mazatlan to build a theater in the city, Construction began that same year under the direction of the Engineer of the City, Librado Tapia. In support of the work, the City of Mazatlan, agreed to forgive Rubio the payment of municipal taxes for twenty years, counted from the conclusion of construction.
Manuel Rubio died in a shipwreck, when he was going to Paris with the intention of bringing from Europe decorations for the theater. He did not get to see his work finished, but his widow, Doña Vicenta Unzueta, continued the construction until its inauguration. In the little more than five years that its construction took, the investment, that originally had been calculated in $ 30,000.00 (thirty thousand pesos), doubled in around $ 70,000 (seventy thousand pesos). On February 15, 1874, even though all the balconies were not placed, the theater was inaugurated with the presentation of “La Campana de Almudaina” and “La Casa de Campo”, by the Spanish Company of Mariano Luque Immediately, the widow of Rubio, who took over the theater, asked the municipal government to comply with the decree of tax exemption. The City Council refused, arguing that the theater was not finished in its entirety and that the annexed house had ceased to be the home of the Rubio family, to become the Hotel Iturbide.
Through a long litigation, Doña Vicenta Unzueta was forced to sell the property three years after its opening. The theater estate and the Iturbide Hotel were acquired by Juan Bautista Hernández, partner of the Spanish firm Hernández Mendía y Asociados, with interests in the port. Faced with the requirements of the cabildo for the payment of taxes, the new owners immediately referred to the exemption agreement of 1869, and obtained a favorable reduction in the amount of the contributions, instead of the $ 43,000.00 (forty-three thousand pesos) demanded by the authorities paid only $ 10,000.00 (ten thousand). Between 1879 and 1881 important works were carried out to complete the missing details in the building and turn it into a luxurious theater.
The remodeling of “windows, doors and balconies, as well as other fundamental repairs” were in charge of Santiago León Astengo. The painter Juan Gómez took charge of the scenographic curtains and other decorations. With 1366 locations and the best advances of the time, the theater was inaugurated, for the second time, on February 6, 1881, at which a concert of the singing students of Maestro Manuel Cataño was presented. Since its opening in 1940, the Rubio theater was the scene of all kinds of cultural events and shows such as operas, zarzuelas, dramas, civic events, circus, boxing and wrestling. He also served for a time for carnival events held to choose queens and for masquerade dances.
The most important event recorded in the history of the theater, curiously not happened in it, but in the nearby hotel. In August of 1883, the Italian Company of Angela Peralta “El Ruiseñor Mexicano” was presented to offer an opera function; nevertheless, the diva could not sing because she had been infected with yellow fever on board the ship in which she arrived, dying a few days later in the room number 10 of Hotel Iturbide, located next to the theater. That death marked the history of the theater and that of the cultural life of Mazatlan. In 1943, the Rubio Theater became the Angela Peralta Cinema, which operated until 1964. Then, the building remained closed for five years. Already deteriorated and in frank abandon, it was used to present a Burlesque show during the 1969 carnival. The building at the wrong time was degraded; from house of opera to theater, to cinema, vaudeville, scene of rumorous carnival parties, then it was adapted as box sand; Now with the name of Angela Peralta, which she acquired in 1943, she went to a movie theater to end up in a pneumonia workshop (a local public transport). A cyclone destroyer that hit the port in 1975 destroyed the interior of the room, the forum, and the foyer patio. In spite of the significant efforts of different groups of Mazatlan citizens to reopen it, the building of the Teatro Rubio, now known as Teatro Ángela Pera