Costa Rica - The National Theater in San José

The results of my private swaps are much better than I expected! :) This is my first card from Costa Rica (and 2nd from Central America - I've already had one from Aruba) and it was actually sent from there with beautiful stamps by Shirley, who I met on the Postcrossing forum.
The building shown on this postcard is the National Theater of Costa Rica, located in San José, country's capital. Actually, it's quite similar to the ones you can see in Europe, but there's no doubt which country it is, because there's Costa Rican flag. By the way, I often confuse it with the Thai flag, they're quite similar, but I'm trying to remember that the flag of Costa Rica has red stripe in the middle, while there's blue one in the middle of Thai flag.


The Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica (National Theater of Costa Rica) is located in the central section of San José. Construction began on the theatre in 1891, and it opened to the public on October 21, 1897 with a performance of Faust. The Teatro Nacional is the maximum representation of economical stability of the nation, in a period of time when coffee exports were a round success. The use of this theatre is limited to high quality performances, undergoing a very selective process prior to admission for performing. The President of Costa Rica at the time, José Joaquín Rodríguez, to provide the nation with a theatre fit of that name, decided to put a tax to the coffee, the principal export product, to finance the project.