Luísa Cymbron

In the extensive bibliography on Almeida Garrett his role as spectator and opera critic is an aspect generally forgotten. Having become an assiduous and passionate opera-goer, the father of Portuguese Romanticism exhibited his elegance and eloquence in the parterre and the boxes, but he also enjoyed what the stage offered him, exalted in verse the singers and dancers who appeared on it, and reflected on everything that was happening on stage. This article is a first attempt to discuss the different levels of his relationship with opera, through his poetry, his epistolary, criticism and novels, looking at the writer as someone who was part of a universe of sounds and dramaturgy, and has left relevant testimonies of it. His experiences of the French theatrical scene emerge in an amalgam of references in which, as was common in the countries of Southern Europe, Italian theater was dominant.

From a musical viewpoint nineteenth­-century Portugal, especially during its first half, is characterized by the supremacy of the Italian vocal tradition inherited from the previous century. Between the thirties and the fifties, as a fixed repertoire began to assert itself, the S. Carlos in Lisbon attempted to present a few operas written on purpose for the theatre. For this it resorted to the hired maestros, preferably the foreign ones - such as Francesco Schira, Pietro A Coppola, etc. - who had proved their worth. Portuguese composers active in this period, such as Antonio Luis Miro, Manuel Inocencio dos Santos or Francisco Xavier Migone, some of whom also worked in the theatre, were not required to compose operas, but they did it on occasion. This article attempts to analyse the motivations and the way in which these composers wrote operas, of which very few scores survive, while also studying the conditions in which the S. Carlos produced them.

This article deals with the history of the Teatro de S. Joao in Oporto during the Romantic period, considering its peripheral status when compared to that of 'State theatre' upheld by the S. Carlos in Lisbon, which was attended by the court and the capital's political and social elite. It discusses the history of the building and the relations between its management and impresarios, on the one hand, and the State, on the other, during the period which followed the Liberal victory of 1834, in particular with regard to the Inspeccao Geral dos Teatros, which from 1836 onwards supervised all theatrical activities. The mounting of the seasons and the hiring and circulation of singers reflect the economic difficulties that the Teatro S. Joao always had to face, and the way in which it depended for its functioning on other peninsular theatres, such as Lisbon, Cadiz and the Galician cities.

Camões in Brazil: Operetta and Portuguese Culture in Rio de Janeiro, circa 1880 n luísa cymbron cesem-fcsh, universidade nova de lisboa o In 1880 Portugal and Brazil celebrated the tercentenary of the death of Luís de Camões (c. 1524-1580), the sixteenth-century Portuguese poet who is well known for his poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), where he narrates the epic of Portuguese discoveries, and also for his lyric poetry and in particular his sonnets, most of them on love themes and written under the influence of Petrarchism. Camões's achievements marked a high moment for Portuguese culture, and although there were different ideological undertones and distinct political objectives on both sides of the Atlantic, the 1880 celebrations insisted on the exaltation of the poet as an icon of national heritage, projecting a broader ideal of brotherhood between the two countries. In Rio de Janeiro the Revista illustrada humorously described what had happened in the city: This week never had its own story: it was devoted to leisure and rest, and the little that it lived, it lived from the festive life of the other, as the true parasite that it was. Everyone felt tired from so much partying, and they put aside their enthusiasm and their tailcoats, to stay at home and ruminate about Camões's centenary, to stretch, reading the commemorative supplements of the daily papers, yawning and finally sleeping.. .. We have a shorter endurance than that of the Creator: God only rested after a week's work; we stretch, half awake, on the fourth day of celebrations and enthusiasm. And I must confess that I have never seen so much resistance, so much activity, or so much thirst for festivities, in Rio de Janeiro, in honor of a man who cannot even thank us. Esta semana não teve história própria: foi consagrada ao ócio e ao descanso, e o pouco que viveu, viveu-o da vida festiva da outra, como verdadeira parasita que foi. Cada um achou-se cansado de tanta festa, e guardou o seu entusiasmo e a sua casaca, para ficar em casa e resmoer o centenário de Camões, a estirar-se, lendo os suplementos comemorativos das folhas diárias, bocejando e finalmente dormindo.. .. Nós temos o fôlego mais curto do que o fôlego do Criador: Deus só descansou depois de uma

Camões in Brazil: Operetta and Portuguese Culture in Rio de Janeiro, circa 1880 n luísa cymbron cesem-fcsh, universidade nova de lisboa o In 1880 Portugal and Brazil celebrated the tercentenary of the death of Luís de Camões (c. 1524-1580), the sixteenth-century Portuguese poet who is well known for his poem Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads), where he narrates the epic of Portuguese discoveries, and also for his lyric poetry and in particular his sonnets, most of them on love themes and written under the influence of Petrarchism. Camões's achievements marked a high moment for Portuguese culture, and although there were different ideological undertones and distinct political objectives on both sides of the Atlantic, the 1880 celebrations insisted on the exaltation of the poet as an icon of national heritage, projecting a broader ideal of brotherhood between the two countries. In Rio de Janeiro the Revista illustrada humorously described what had happened in the city: This week never had its own story: it was devoted to leisure and rest, and the little that it lived, it lived from the festive life of the other, as the true parasite that it was. Everyone felt tired from so much partying, and they put aside their enthusiasm and their tailcoats, to stay at home and ruminate about Camões's centenary, to stretch, reading the commemorative supplements of the daily papers, yawning and finally sleeping.. .. We have a shorter endurance than that of the Creator: God only rested after a week's work; we stretch, half awake, on the fourth day of celebrations and enthusiasm. And I must confess that I have never seen so much resistance, so much activity, or so much thirst for festivities, in Rio de Janeiro, in honor of a man who cannot even thank us. Esta semana não teve história própria: foi consagrada ao ócio e ao descanso, e o pouco que viveu, viveu-o da vida festiva da outra, como verdadeira parasita que foi. Cada um achou-se cansado de tanta festa, e guardou o seu entusiasmo e a sua casaca, para ficar em casa e resmoer o centenário de Camões, a estirar-se, lendo os suplementos comemorativos das folhas diárias, bocejando e finalmente dormindo.. .. Nós temos o fôlego mais curto do que o fôlego do Criador: Deus só descansou depois de uma

"O texto esclarece-nos, por outro lado, sobre a tipologia formal do repertório instrumental de concerto e de salão, bem como dos vários géneros vocais da canção de câmara e do teatro musical. Analisa em profundidade a apropriação e a manipulação pelo compositor, na sua obra, das convenções de composição da ópera italiana e da opereta francesa do seu tempo. Aborda em termos particularmente lúcidos a problemática da criação de uma ópera nacional em língua portuguesa, tanto em Portugal como no Brasil, à luz das estratégias de construção de identidades nacionais características da ideologia romântica, mas também das lógicas de distinção cosmopolita que pressupunham a circulação e a partilha, mesmo que transformando-os localmente, dos modelos de escrita emanados dos grandes centros de referência da vida musical europeia. E consegue fazer tudo isto numa óptica de integração da realidade musical luso-brasileira num pano de fundo transnacional sem preocupações de juízos de valor apriorísticos, perspectivando a música e os músicos de que está a tratar num sistema de trocas internacionais em que os modelos de referência e os seus usos locais convivem e se interpenetram sem o complexo permanente da aferição em função de um qualquer critério único de progresso histórico-artístico." Rui Vieira Nery, Prefácio

Le fruit du hasard D'un point de vue général, on peut dire que le Portugal de la première moitié du XIX e siècle fut influencé par la culture française de façon déterminante. Après les expéditions armées de Napoléon entre  et  et l'émigration de toute une géné-ration d'intellectuels portugais à partir des années , à la fin de la Guerre Civile – qui permit la création d'une monarchie constitutionnelle – la culture française, y compris l'opéra, s'imposa au Portugal. Ce phénomène se fit sentir plus particuliè-rement à Lisbonne. Dès les années , des compagnies de théâtre françaises y vinrent, et à la fin de  une troupe de  acteurs s'y installa. Ils présentèrent un répertoire d'auteurs pratiquement inconnus, comme Dumas, Scribe, et Hugo, y com-pris Hernani en . Dans une ville où la plupart des librairies étaient françaises, les dernières nouveautés arrivaient rapidement de Paris et, en , Hugo et Dumas étaient devenus les auteurs les plus populaires. Quand le nouveau Conservatoire fut créé en  – sur le modèle parisien de  – l'écrivain Almeida Garrett, qui fut le responsable de l'introduction du romantisme littéraire au Portugal, établit une Académie qui eut comme premiers membres correspondants Hugo, Scribe et Delavigne 1. Toutefois, dans les deux théâtres lyriques du pays – le S. Carlos à Lisbonne et le S. João à Porto – presque tout continuait à suivre le chemin tracé au XVIII e siècle. Aussi bien pour ce qui relevait du système de production que pour le répertoire, ils fonctionnaient comme de vrais « théâtres italiens » 2. Du fait que la langue italienne était la seule admise sur scène, les quelques compositeurs qui écrivirent des opéras à Lisbonne pendant la première moitié du XIX e siècle se tournèrent en premier lieu vers des livrets italiens célèbres – le plus souvent de Felice Romani – et en second lieu vers les thèmes nationaux 3. À cette période, la seule adaptation lyrique d'un ouvrage littéraire français pour la scène portugaise devait naître, non pas à Lisbonne, mais à Porto, une ville qui se situait en quelque sorte à la périphérie de la périphérie – étant la « deuxième ville