Béjar, a wool town in the Salamanca sierra, keeps its Teatro Cervantes as the only stage of that size for some distance around; the building is usually dated to the end of the nineteenth century. The town owns it and contracts out the running. In 2017 it counted 87 performances and 17,205 spectators — ten from the Castilla y León theatre network, 33 put on by the town hall, 43 by private promoters. That last group is what brings opera in: touring Verdi and Bizet with companies and orchestras from eastern Europe.