Teatro S. Luiz, in Lisbon, opens the season on September 2 with “A Boémia de um Cabaret Sonoro”, continues with theater, opera, music, cinema and involves creators and structures such as Vítor Rua, Tiago Correia and Cátia Pinheiro.
The premiere of the opera “The Tempest”, by Jean Sibelius, on the text by William Shakespeare, directed by António Pires, is the first of a program announced by the theater, to be fulfilled until the end of December, which also includes new productions by the companies Artistas Unidos, Teatro Praga, Cão Solteiro, which hosts shows by A Turma and the Alkantara festival, and honors Pedro Gonçalves (1970-2021), from Dead Combo, with the concert “Um Olhar Que Era Só Teu”, in which more than two dozen musicians participate.
“A Boémia de um Cabaret Sonoro”, by Suzie and the Boys, is a concert “in an atmosphere of blues, Latin rhythms, mambo, swing and rock and roll”, starring Miss Suzie and “a small orchestra” of eight musicians from projects such as Irmãos Catita, Cool Hipnoise, Ena Pá 2000, Terrakota, X-Wife, Cais Sodre Funk Connection, Farra Fanfarra and Tora Tora Big Band, among others.
At the opening of the season, there will also be “Zabra Soundscapes”, by artist João Pedro Fonseca and DJ Manuel Bogalheiro, a joint project, which assumes itself as “artistic movement with space dedicated to experimentation and research”.
On September 7, the preview of the filmed opera “virino kaj naturo # _” (original title in Esperanto of “Woman and Nature”), with music by Vítor Rua and libretto by Ilda Teresa Castro; an opera “ecofeminist and ecomulherist”, which makes an approach to the Black Feminism and Black Lives Matter movements, led by African-American women.
The Portuguese premiere of “The Tempest” takes place on September 13 and is on stage for a week. The production brings together the company of the National Operetta’s Theatre of Kiev, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra and the participatory project Coro do Festival de Verão.
The production evokes Shakespeare’s message and places it in “the moment humanity is going through, with a bloody war taking place in the middle of Europe”, taking Prospero’s words, more than 400 years old, as its “central theme”: “Only forgiveness and redemption can convey a future and an idea of continuity.”
“Um Olhar Que Era Só Teu – A Música dos Dead Combo”, a concert that is “neither a celebration nor a farewell”, takes place on September 28, remembering Pedro Gonçalves and, in addition to Tó Trips, the other half of the duo, brings together more than 20 musicians such as Aldina Duarte, Alexandre Frazão, Filipe Melo, Gaspar Varela, Mário Delgado, Nuno Rafael and Peixe.
“O Salto”, by Tiago Correia, with the company A Turma, is on stage from October 4th to 8th. The play is the result of research into Portuguese emigration in the 1960s, based on real testimonies, and aims to “lift the veil on a period of history” that “remains taboo, due to the misery and obscurantism in which it lived, the oppression of the dictatorship or because it invokes the dissident theme of desertion from the colonial war.”̀
S. Luiz will also host the premieres of “Europa”, by David Greig, by Artistas Unidos, directed by Pedro Carraca, in October; “Abstract”, by Cão Solteiro and Vasco Araújo, in November; and “Bravo 2023!”, by Teatro Praga, which closes December. Cátia Pinheiro will present “Carta à Matilde”, in September.
In October, the cycle “Imaginary Topographies – From punk to near silence”, of the Lisbon Municipal Archive – Video Library, maps “the encounter between cinema, music and Lisbon”, with films by Edgar Pêra, Nuno Calado and David Francisco, Ricardo Espírito Santo, Nuno Duarte and Nuno Galopim, crossing universes of musicians and bands such as Censurados, Pop Dell’Arte, Manuel João Vieira and the Catita Brothers, without forgetting the stage of Rock Rendez Vous where they all passed.
In November, the multidisciplinary project “Kilombo”, by the Aurora Negra collective (Cléo Diára, Isabél Zuaa and Nádia Yracema), with the program still under construction, promises to constitute itself as a “place of strength and liberation”, bringing together artists who, “with their art, have contributed to the creation of dreams and utopias”.
This is the first season under the artistic direction of Miguel Loureiro, but still “mostly designed” by his predecessor, Aida Tavares, as the new director states in the presentation.
The opening of the season, on September 2, has free admission, subject to capacity.
The full program can be found on the theater’s website https://www.teatrosaoluiz.pt/en/
