The cine-concert ‘The Great Dictator’, by Charles Chaplin, stands out in the cinema-focused program at the National Theatre of São Carlos, featuring conductor Timothy Brock and the “great collaboration” of composers and filmmakers in “Music for Films”.
On the last two days of May, at Teatro Camões in Lisbon, a restored version of Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’ will be screened, accompanied live by the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra (OSP) under the baton of American conductor Timothy Brock.
In “The Great Dictator” (1940), Chaplin directs, stars, and composes the score, with “Charlot going to war against fanaticism and intolerance, appearing for the last time on screen as a Jewish barber who has a double: none other than the dictator of the country, Adenoid Hynkel”.
“‘The Great Dictator’ is an opportunity to witness Chaplin’s talent as a composer,” states the programming dossier of the National Theatre of S. Carlos (TNSC). “A lover of orchestral music, present in almost all his films, Chaplin applies two classical excerpts in sequences without dialogue, akin to silent cinema: Brahms’ ‘Hungarian Dance No. 5’ and Wagner’s ‘Prelude to Lohengrin’.”
“Music for Films” returns on May 18 with a concert at Parque Eduardo VII in Lisbon, dedicated to the “solid artistic partnerships that unite composers and directors,” such as Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock (“Vertigo: Suite”), Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in America”), Nino Rota and Federico Fellini (“8½”), John Williams and George Lucas (“Star Wars”), John Barry and Sidney Pollack (“Out of Africa”), and Robert Wise and Leonard Bernstein (“West Side Story”).
In this concert, the OSP will be conducted by José Eduardo Gomes.
Leonard Bernstein is also the composer of “Wonderful Town,” a musical that TNSC will present at Teatro Tivoli in Lisbon on June 21 and at the Arts and Entertainment Center of Figueira da Foz a week later on June 28.
The OSP will be led by Joana Carneiro, with a cast including Laura Pitt-Pulford, Lara Martins, Luís Rodrigues, Mário Redondo, Diogo Oliveira, Sérgio Martins, and the Chorus of the National Theatre of São Carlos.
Bernstein’s musical, with a book by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov based on Ruth McKenney’s autobiographical stories, and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, also had a televised version five years after its Broadway debut, produced by CBS and featuring the original cast led by Rosalind Russell.
The TNSC’s program from May to July was announced today. It is overseen by the Artistic Committee, consisting of the principal conductors of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pirolli, the TNSC Choir, Giampaolo Vessella, and the director of Musical Studies, Maestro João Paulo Santos, who manages the coordination.
