“[Argentina’s] Teatro Colón is grand opera all by itself… Despite a crushing international debt, economic near-chaos and an ugly political history, this city is a place of staggering energy, from the traffic that races up and down some of the widest boulevards in the world to the successive managements of this opera house since 1908, whose attention to Latin American composers and embrace of the new and exciting from the rest of the world have made it something we in New York might envy.” The house is currently putting on a production of Britten’s “Death in Venice,” and while Teatro Colón may not have the budget of extravagant companies in the U.S. and Europe, it is every inch a major company, both musically and theatrically.