The first Festival of Art and Opera (FIATO) of Porto begins this Wednesday and until Saturday there will be a program that begins and ends with operas dedicated to women considered heroines of Portugal.
In October, during the presentation of the festival, the artistic director, Teresa Nunes, explained that the festival aims to pay “a tribute to exaltation of women and its role in the transformation of the times”, highlighting that FIATO will occupy spaces in the city such as the Coliseu, the Teatro do Bolhão and the Teatro Helena Sá e Costa, but will also “find the population in emblematic places, such as the Mercado do Bolhão and São Bento Station”.
“The main objective is bringing the public closer to the operabring this artistic genre closer to the people of Portuá and have a varied program where opera is reinvented and often transformed into something else,” he stated.
The opening of the festival, organized by the Quarteto Contratempus, will take place this Wednesday, at 9 p.m., at the Coliseu do Porto, with the operetta Maria da Fonteof a “comical and satirical” nature, which features the Artave Orchestra and the Choir of the National Theater of São Carlos.
Written by Augusto Machado, with musical direction by João Paulo Santos and staging by Ricardo Neves-Neves, this operetta presents the “popular heroine as an intense, brave woman who does not renounce a certain social conscience.”
On Thursday, the Manifesto of nothingby Inestética Companhia Teatral, presented as “an opera-manifesto for and against everything and decidedly about nothing.”
The music of António Sousa Dias proposes “a possible journey in this universe, courting deconstruction, flirting with collage, flirting with irreverence, in the blink of an eye with different contemporary musical expressions or close to the DADA movement and where logic does not rule.
At the Helena Sá e Costa Theater, on Friday, at 9 p.m., AREPO — Opera and Contemporary Art presents The mountain faunwhich “unites two different artistic dimensions (black and white silent cinema and contemporary opera) to create a new artistic subgenre, never before experienced: silent opera.”
It is an original opera, with music by Luís Solnado, libretto by Rui Zink, staging by Linda Valadas and musical direction by Rui Pinheiro, who will accompany and narrate the Portuguese silent film. The mountain faunby Madeiran filmmaker Manuel Luís Vieira.
On the morning of the last day of the festival, the Ópera Isto company performs at the Coliseum with the work Serenade Serenade and, at 9 p.m., at the Teatro do Bolhão, the closing show takes the stage Tower of Memoryof the Contratempus Quartet.
“Through the lively and brave song of a varina on land, we begin a journey through the daily life of the fishing community of Esposende at the beginning of the 20th century,” explained Teresa Nunes, noting that “in the form of an elegy, the journey ends in the evocation of a true maritime tragedy.”
The program also highlights the “Opera à Moda do Porto”, “another dimension of fun” that will take place at different times at the S. Bento train station, at the Trindade metro station, at the Via Catarina Shopping Center and at a STCP bus, parked in Praça. Mr. Juan I.
In this first edition of FIATO, which will be held every two years, Ricardo Alves was invited to create five sketches Inspired by typical figures of Porto, which will be presented in “emblematic” places in Porto.
There will also be an exhibition Expanded operaat the Casa da Beira Alta, singing classes for everyone, from 15 years old, for 10 euros, Vocal Health workshops and a closing party with DJ Shuggah Lickurs who in the Maus Hábitos space “will give a special touch to the arias classics, but without losing the essence of the opera.”
Source: Observadora
