Is it true that you were discovered by chance while singing with some friends at a table next to Rodrigo Leão and Gabriel Gomes?

Back then I was 17 years old and Bairro Alto was a very mysterious place, very different from what it is today, with some small bars and clubs. My friends and I would go to all these places, and these night outings had a special charm because I was always singing – I had a friend who would always ask me to sing when we went out. This boosted my love for singing, as it gave me some feedback, the enthusiasm of the people who clapped and asked for more. On that particular day we were at Gingão, and Sétima Legião came in. They were looking for a singer, and I think I was the 14th singer they listened to. There is a very funny story related to that episode: Pedro Ayres was in Brazil and Rodrigo took the audition tape to the airport so he could hear it. Then they called me to work with them, and I never stopped since then.

You were only 17 when you joined Madredeus, which was an innovative project in the Portuguese music scene of the 1980s. Did you realize right away that the Madredeus sound was something unique and innovative?

The group was received, from the very first album, with a lot of enthusiasm by both the public and the critics. We recorded the first album in 1987, and at the end of the following year we were invited to the Bologna Young Artists Biennial. That’s when we realized that even people who did not understand the language actually loved our music. When this adventure began, I had no idea that music was going to be my life – although I wanted that. Music has always been a great company. As an only child, I spent most of my time listening to music and singing. I was fortunate to join a group that introduced me to a repertoire that was both familiar and completely new to me, and which ended up having a great impact on the public. The first few years were marked by a lot of enthusiasm, not least because we were entering a very different era from the one the country had experienced in the previous decade. Madredeus had a very Portuguese flavor, coming from tradition but renewing it. We had a different language, an intimate atmosphere, a quietness… I think we didn’t realize that right away, not like we do today when we look back and see what we did. I was singing songs that touched my heart, with which I could relate, and that sentimental aspect had a great impact on the public. My life slowly became the opposite of what I had experienced until then, as an only child who was studying and had never gone abroad. The first album was recorded in three nights at Teatro Ibérico. We had to play at night so as not to record the sound of the tram [laughs].

Did your parents encourage you?

I studied piano and when I started singing I was at Academia de Amadores de Música, but I wasn’t too serious about it. At home I would often create Song Festivals with my cousins, who lived downstairs. Singing was a constant presence and a company. When I started going out at night and singing during these outings, I was in love with two records my parents had at home, and which had a huge influence on me. One by Amália (the one with the bust on the cover and the song Abandono ), and Zeca Afonso’s Cantigas do Maio. Those were the songs I would sing when I went out at night.

You left the band in 2007. Did you feel it was time to pursue a solo career?

Our lives had changed, we had built our own families, so we had to manage our calendar differently. The first calendar lasted ten years; the second, another ten. But in the meantime, we stopped for a year to think about how to organize this. We had talked about having three or four months of very intense activity and then each one would do other things, not least because some band members had other projects. That year I recorded two albums produced by Pedro Ayres de Magalhães, and another album at the invitation of Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner – Silence Night & Dreams, recorded by EMI Classics. It was a very intense year in which I toured with these three projects. At the end of the year, when we discussed our calendar again, I got a very different proposal: a seven-year priority contract (not exclusive). It was either that or leaving the band. I was surprised by the inflexibility, but since things were like that, I decided to leave. For the first time, I said ‘no’.

But you never gave up on music…

In the meantime, I joined a repertory creation group and I started creating some melodies and writing some lyrics. With Madredeus I sang what they gave me. I had some room for creativity, but it’s not the same as having total freedom to create your own lyrics and melodies. This group did not go on, but I liked the idea of having a group of musicians with whom I would create a repertoire – which happened later, in 2011. I did a lot of things before that: I was in Italy, where I sang with the Solis String Quartet, while also creating concerts and writing arrangements, always looking for the right musicians to create that environment of great dedication. It finally happened in 2011, and in 2012 I recorded my first album, Mistério, and then the second one, Horizonte, in 2016. Between these two albums, I did another record in which I wrote the arrangements for several Mexican and Latin American songs.

You have worked with several internationally renowned artists such as José Carreras, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Is there anyone you would like to work with?

I never thought about it. These collaborations have always been fleeting meetings, invitations I received. Only recently, in May, at a show I gave at Casino Estoril, did I invite two people to join me: Marisa Liz and Sara Tavares. Two women I admire deeply, with very different but equally charming personalities. Very strong and dedicated women I met Marisa when Amor Electro invited me to sing with them at Campo Pequeno, and I’d been following Sara’s career for many years, always with great interest. I’ve always liked her music. I invited the two of them, and I think it was wonderful.

Did you find it difficult to transition from being a singer to being a songwriter?

I was very happy when I found out I could do it. When we recorded the first album, we wanted to go to a place where we could focus entirely on our music, without any distractions. We stayed at Arrábida Convent (owned by Fundação Oriente, which generously lent us the space for a month). I had a lot of songs without any lyrics yet, but things flowed and went very well. Things were just waiting to come out. Somehow, I knew what I wanted to say. So the words came out and slowly fit into the metrics. The second album was more complicated, because it was more difficult to find the time to be fully available. I thought it would work the same way but I was completely wrong – things never repeat themselves. I tried to repeat the process but it didn’t work, not least because there were some distractions.

What gives you the most pleasure: singing other people’s lyrics or your own?

They are very different things. When I sing something, I relate to the words, even if they aren’t mine. I embody the character. It’s not like that with own lyrics. Although my lyrics are not autobiographical, they reflect my ideas, my philosophy of life. I feel more comfortable with my lyrics, I feel greater freedom. They are different but equally captivating.

You will always be associated with Madredeus. Do you see that as a burden or a source of pride?

I wouldn’t say it’s a burden, but sometimes it can be a bit limiting. People think of Madredeus as a distant band. Although we played a lot of concerts and sold out concert halls all over the world, it wasn’t the kind of music you’d hear on the radio, it wasn’t massive in that sense. People tend to downplay the influence Madredeus actually had. I can’t see it as a burden because it’s part of me, it’s what I am. It’s inseparable from me, it’s my musical DNA. It was 20 years. It’s a big part of my emotional structure. As time goes by, I can see things from a different perspective. So much so that it now makes sense to give a concert where I focus more on the group’s music.

25 years ago, you played a unique show for the premiere of Wim Wenders’ Lisbon Story . What memories do you have from that experience?

It was a beautiful coincidence. The label had just decided that our next record would be released in 32 countries. Back then [1994], Lisbon, which was the European Capital of Culture, commissioned a documentary about the city from Wim Wenders, and he asked us to use our music as the soundtrack. We hadn’t recorded anything for three years and we had a lot of new songs, so we suggested using an all-new repertoire. During a studio session, instead of recording one record, we recorded two. The music became the storyboard for the film and gave rise to a script that embodied Wim Wenders’ vision of Lisbon, so he eventually invited us to star in the film. It was a very enriching experience. For the band it was extraordinary because we ended up releasing our albums all over the world, and because we were part of a movie that opened up a new audience we might not otherwise reach. People still tell me it was with the movie that they discovered us.

What next?

I have written several things, loose things. I wrote a song based on a poem by José Saramago, called Alegria [Joy]. That joy marks the beginning of a new cycle.

Despite a multifarious work covering design, painting, illustration, ceramics, embroidery and furniture/interior decor, Sarah Affonso remains, 120 years after her birth, relatively unknown to the public. Her marriage to the Promethean figure of Almada Negreiros and the fact that she was born in a country that raised serious obstacles to female artistic expression have greatly contributed to this fact.

However, Sarah was one of the first to overcome such obstacles to the affirmation of women as artists in Portugal, back in the early decades of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to frequent – against all conventions – Café Brasileira in Chiado, which reveals not only the prejudices of her time but also the independent spirit with which she faced them. Her art also drew on a language and themes of her own, using her experiences and memories as raw material.

The painter spent two seasons in Paris which would prove crucial to her artistic evolution – the first in late 1923 and the second in 1928. She saw exhibitions by Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, collaborated sporadically with Sonia Delaunay, and studied the work of Georges Braque and Marie Laurencin, with whom he shared a taste for female portraits.

In this context, Sarah Affonso’s work reflects a widespread resurgence of figuration in postwar European art. In her case, it was an intimate and sensitive figuration – an unprecedented approach in Portugal that explored a feminine and family universe and transposed folk art and imagery from her childhood in Minho (Northern Portugal) into a modern, cosmopolitan art.

José-Augusto França’s magnum opus 100 Quadros Portugueses no Século XX(100 Portuguese Paintings in the 20th Century) dedicates a beautiful text to Sarah Affonso’s Sereia (Mermaid, 1939):

“The best thing about this painting, which is inspired by folk religion and the painter’s memories of Minho, is that its protagonist is the naked rosy mermaid, with her golden hair, rather than Our Lady of Salvation! Catholic grace is superseded by the grace of art…”

The text goes on to perfectly outline the painter’s main contribution to coeval Portuguese art and her paradoxical and unique position in it: “Emerging in ‘independent’ showrooms in 1930, the painter brought a breath of fresh, delightful air to exhibition halls… a childlike taste for poetic innocence, in an unusual dimension of modernism which somehow retained its ability to create original objects – all the way (if it were to make history) to the final and synthetic structuring of Almada’s paintings in Lisbon’s maritime stations, six or seven years later – in a chronological logic in which Sarah Affonso, Almada’s wife and colleague, fits without fitting. Which, by the way, is her situation in the Portuguese painting context of her time.”

Sarah Affonso occasionally leaves portraits aside – her work’s most distinctive feature – and opts to include certain aspects of Minho’s folklore in her compositions: traditions and fairs, processions and pilgrimages, along with folk mythologies. These works show that the city of Viana do Castelo has left a mark in her childhood and teenage years, and that Minho’s special character has stayed in her memory.

In 1962, António Pedro highlighted “the delicious originality of this folkloreless painter’s Minho adventure – the Minho I speak of lies in the memory of taste, not in anecdotes, and is therefore a category, not an accident.”

The exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, along with its catalog, aims to fill this lacuna and publicize the work of one of the most notable Portuguese modernists – a tribute to an artist who, despite all constraints, created a language of her own and knew, in the words of museum director Emília Ferreira, how to be a “skilled weaver” of her time.

Before directing Metropolis, Fritz Lang was already one of the most reputed German filmmakers of his time , in large part due to the hugely successful ‘Dr. Mabuse‘ (1922), which would have several sequels. Not surprisingly, Lang was given green light to shoot ‘ Metropolis‘, which would become the most expensive film ever produced by UFA (Universum Film AG), a German company hoping to conquer the US market with Lang’s new opus.

As pointed out by Filipe Raposo – the composer invited by São Luiz Theater to write a new ‘ Metropolis‘ score almost a century later – “Lang would travel to New York in the mid-1920s, which would prove crucial to the film.” On that trip to the ‘New World’, haunted by Manhattan’s gigantic skyscrapers, Lang and his wife, screenwriter Thea von Harbou, came up with the idea to write a story about a city where the dominant class controls everything from its skyscrapers, while workers are taken underground to man the machines that keep the city alive.

The production process was epic in itself, involving thousands of extras and unprecedented resources. But neither UFA conquered America, nor Lang would see the movie he dreamed of in theaters. Due to strictures imposed by censors and producers, Metropolis premiered with little over 80 minutes – the version which presumably was shown at São Luiz Cine in 1928, with Pedro Blanch conducting a chamber orchestra and Gottfried Huppertz’s score.

Running at about 120 minutes, the version we will now see – with a new score commissioned to composer and pianist Filipe Raposo to celebrate both the film’s premiere in São Luiz Theater and the venue’s 125th anniversary – is the version that dazzled audiences around the world in the 1940s and 1980s. “We opted for this version, not the latest one – which runs at two and a half hours – because it is the closest to the to version one that premiered here.

” Although Raposo has accompanied Lang’s film on his piano on several occasions, ‘Filipe Raposo meets Fritz Lang ‘ is “a completely different experience.” “The challenge was to write a new score for the film’s 120 minutes and for the same number of musicians who were here in 1928.” The Portuguese Symphony Orchestra’s chamber ensemble will be conducted by Cesário Costa.

Writing the new score “took over three months,” and Raposo hopes his music will be able to “depict the future” while also endowing Lang’s Metropoliswith a current approach. The composer thus believes his soundtrack is radically different from Gottfried Huppertz’s, “because my understanding of the film, both historically and sociologically, is necessarily different.

” Raposo says his score reflects three major themes addressed in the film. First, “cities and the future,” with all that “architectural verticality” reflected in the music. Second, class struggle, “represented with much turmoil.” Finally, passion and seduction, “present in both the emotional and political realms, with my music revisiting such composers as Bach and Jean-Philippe Rameau, in which there is an idea of seduction associated with winding melodies and very balanced harmonies.”

Filipe Raposo’s encounter with the images of the future imagined by Fritz Lang thus promises to be a fascinating experience located between the music of today, the music of tomorrow, and the timelessness of great cinema in São Luiz Theater’s most noble hall.

Where does your passion for discovering new music come from?

Several people in my family are classical musicians. I don’t know if that passion is genetic or not. There were not many records in my house, but the radio was always on. My father had a habit of turning on the radio at lunchtime, and that’s how I listened to music. Perhaps because some of my relatives were musicians, my parents made me learn an instrument. After a few years I realized I was better at choosing records than at playing music. This happened in 1986, when I started working at a pirate radio station. I was one of those kids who always went to school with records or cassettes under their arms.

Your passion for radio came later?

It happened by chance, I had never thought of doing radio. I’ve always enjoyed listening to the radio, for the music rather than the hosts. Up to a certain age I would listen to Luis Filipe Barros, Antonio Sérgio or Rui Morrison’s shows… I wasn’t very selective about the music, I would listen to everything: Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, U2, or even Rod Stewart. One of the first records I bought was Frank Zappa’s Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch (1982), when I was about 14 years old. Back then I was thirsty for new music, only later did I become more selective.

So you used to spend a lot of money on records…

My father would give me money to eat at school, but I would save that money because I knew that after a few days I would have enough to buy a record. For a while my mother wondered why I spent so much money on records. My father soon understood the path I was taking. Just as he tried to be up-to-date on medicine, which was his professional field, so I was trying to be up-to-date on music.

You must have a huge collection…

I do. It’s not easy with the house movings… I used to have them in a big house. Now I have them all in a small house. I’m in the process of moving again, and again it’s not easy to transport them.

Does a music lover like you buy digital formats?

I stopped buying CDs but I still buy vinyl and digital formats. Digital music – and I work with this format a lot – has a major disadvantage: you don’t establish a connection with a file, unlike the physical object, with which you create an emotional relationship. But I started using this format very early on, in part because of my thirst for urgency, because I wanted to access it as soon as possible. Music was made available at night and I could use it the next day.

Thanks to technological advances and the creation of streaming platforms such as Spotify, younger generations have a more detached relationship with music. And what do you think of that?

When I feel nostalgic, like ‘those were the days’, I realize I’m doing what my parents did, and I don’t want to be that guy. In fact, we used to consume bands and music styles. A person born in the punk orpost-punkera would consume this kind of music and eschew electronic music, metal, and so on. Younger generations today consume music in a completely different way: they tend to consume singles from many different bands. They also have a different concept of time. They like the sound of the 2010s, but they can also listen to older stuff (when listening to music on YouTube or Spotify you always get related tracks). When we were digging for records at the store there were things we would immediately reject without even giving them a chance. I think this generation is more about songs than bands. Music is consumed much faster these days. A three-month-old album is already considered an old record, unlike a few years ago, when an album would begin to come to life only after three months.

You’ve been doing your Indiegente show on Antena3 for the past 22 years. You helped launch many bands over these years…

The artists have all the credit. I may have helped a lot of bands, and maybe I’ve missed out on many others, but I’m still doing radio the way I did in the beginning: sharing the records I like, which is basically what I did back in school, except that radio allows you to reach more people. The idea is to help artists grow because they earn more fans, but also to help people expand their minds by discovering new music. I love it when someone comes to me and says, “I learned how to listen to music with you.” Last year, the first live edition of Indiegentewas attended by people from such faraway places as Bragança and the Algarve — and there was a hurricane that day, so that made me very happy.

How did you come up with the idea of hosting the show live?

In the second or third edition of the Reverence Festival, I told the organizers about the idea of having an Indiegentestage. Some of the artists I had in mind had already been invited to play there, but they had refused because they didn’t agree with the gig fees. When I invited them, they said ‘yes’. They told me, “You’re doing the dirty work, as we wouldn’t say ‘no’ to you. Maybe you should think about organizing something of yours instead of organizing it for others.” The idea stuck, and I thought about doing it to celebrate the show’s 20th anniversary, but for logistical reasons it didn’t happen. It happened last year, on the 21st anniversary. I basically needed a room and to feel I wasn’t compromising my financial future.

How was the band selection process for this new edition?

This line-up is riskier than last year’s, which had more big names. That line-up had been in my head for a long time, as it had been planned for the previous year. This year things didn’t happen that way, because I wasn’t sure there should be another edition.

Why?

I had many doubts. I thought last year was going to be a one-off event, but the feedback was very positive, not only from the audience and the artists, but also from Pedro Valente (stage manager) at Azáfama Produções. I left with the feeling that it had been an early Christmas party. It only made sense to have another Indiegente Live if it were held at Lisboa ao Vivo again, and if I could have the same people organizing it with me.

Does that mean there could be a third edition?

Let’s see where the wind blows. I won’t say no again, unless this year’s edition ruins me financially [laughs]. The question is whether it makes sense to hold another edition, whether it is relevant or not. This year I invited some people I had planned for last year’s edition, but the list was so long I couldn’t include everyone in the lineup…

The whole concept is to invite artists to interact with one another. What can we expect from this edition?

This year we have lesser known but emerging names such as Algmacena (Alex D’alva Teixeira and Ricardo Martins), Deadclub, Knot3 (Selma Uamusse and Toni Fortuna), Nancy Knox, Violet… There is some buzz around these acts but nobody really knows what will come out of there… Anarchicks will also play, and it’s curious because I first saw them in Seixal a few years ago, at an event organized by me. It makes perfect sense to meet people I came across many years ago, especially when I think they are at their height.

Expectations for October 19?

My idea was to bring together experienced artists (such as Bizarra Locomotiva or Parkinsons) and some new faces. I’m very curious to see what they will do. For instance, I’m curious to see what Rui Maia will do with Anarchicks. Last year’s bill included the names of all artists. This year there may be some surprises [laughs]. One of the bands even made an interesting suggestion: having Manu De La Roche [burlesque artist] perform at the same time.

Are there any plans to bring Indiegente Live to other cities?

It has not been ruled out… If there is a third edition, I think it will make perfect sense to do it in Porto, as many Indiegentebands come from that region and it’s not easy to bring them to Lisbon due to logistical reasons. It would be easier if I had some sponsors, of course. [laughs]

Is his work closely linked to the academic world?

I am also an architect in the traditional sense of the word. I have a studio in Paris, where I am a teacher, as well as in Lausanne (Switzerland) and Harvard (USA). About half of my time is devoted to teaching and the rest to my studio. In addition, I write books and articles on contemporary architecture subjects.

This edition of the Triennale has as its central theme ” A Poética da Razão” (The Poetics of Reason). Were Eric Lapierre and his team the ones who chose it?

It is a work I have been developing with a team of professors with whom I collaborate in the school of architecture (École d’Architecture de la Ville et des Territoires à Paris-Est). We had been working on the subject for about a year now in the academic field. The Poetics of Reason is a research project that seeks to define the specifics of the rationality of architecture. The invitation was made official about three years ago, at the end of the previous (2016) Triennial. This allowed us to have all this time to work on the subject, a period of time that allows us to research deeper, unlike other biennials where you only have six months of preparation, for example.

How do you characterize this rationality?

For our team it is important to clearly state that creation is part of intuition, but it is also based on rationality. Architecture is a public art; its works are not enclosed in museums or private collections. They belong to everyone, not just the architect or his clients. They are part of the public space and the city. Thus, it is important to state that architecture must be rational, intelligible and understandable to all, and that in order to achieve this purpose it must be based on rational premises. Note that when I refer to rationality, it is not that it is more boring than something more subjective. Architecture always has a subjective aspect, but this part doesn’t have to be the most relevant. It is important to think that the reason is glamorous. And that it involves a lot of imagination.

Aren’t these concepts usually classified as antagonistic?

There is no opposition between rationality and sensibility or sensuality and imagination. One of our exhibitions, Interior Space,curated by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizzi, is about imagination in architecture. It shows that an architect must start by creating his own imagination as a corollary of a rational process. It should go beyond taste: architects need more solid reasons to act and to judge things. For the public, appreciation has to do with everyone’s taste, which is natural. For an architect, like an artist, there is a rational process in the imagery that comes from the memory, the classifications, the choice of field, or the tradition in which the creator would like to inscribe his work. These aspects belong to a process of rationality that is neither dry or boring, nor any less interesting than creativity. There is a bridge between rationality and creativity that is impossible to destroy. Rationality is a way of inscribing our obsessions or deliberations in the field of common culture. It is the mediator between these intimate obsessions and the common culture.

Is it a tool?

Yes, a tool, an interpretation and reading network. Something that opens up the imagination.

How does this relate to individuality? For example, with the renowned architects who have a very recognizable style?

You are talking about starchitects [“stars of architecture”]. There are some here in Portugal, such as Siza Vieira. These are people who have developed a personal view of architecture throughout their career. These architects are keenly aware of the weight of their culture and, for this reason, their works are easily appropriated by the public. For me, the point of the discipline of architecture is also to emphasize that being an architect is to be involved in this culture. It is the fact that you consciously inscribe your work in the flow of architectural culture that allows collective things to happen. It is much bigger than an individual. To make architecture is to do something collective, even if it is a private house: it is always collective because it belongs to the common culture of architecture.

The names of the Triennale exhibitions suggest that ” Natural Beauty ” and ” Inner Space ” are from a more interior universe and that ” Economy of Means and Arquitecture and Agriculture: In the Side of the Field” are from a more rational universe.

I wouldn’t say so because we try to define the specifics of the rationality of architecture and all this rationality is essentially based on “Economia de Meios” (Economy of Means). The other exhibitions address specific aspects of the rationality of architecture. “Beleza Natural” (Natural Beauty) It’s about the fact that we need a structure for a building to stand up. It is about the choices one can make to design a structure.

Can you specify?

Consider, for example, a branch of a tree. It has the shape and amount of material just enough to balance itself. This quality can be replicated in building structures, for example, to cover the greatest amount of space with as little material as possible. Economy of Means is a way of thinking that is closely linked to natural processes. Inner Space deals with the brain of the architect and how the architect uses rational processes to build his imagination. It uses models, drawings, virtual reality and a series of objects that are a kind of cabinets of curiosities. Agriculture and Architecture addresses the environment and the problems we are currently experiencing like global warming. The exhibition evokes the history of the environment and proposes four scenarios for the near future. It is a way of alerting the public that we must change dramatically and soon. And that we need architecture for that. Architecture has always responded to contemporary social issues. When we pass through a crisis it can be very easy to say that we don’t need architecture, but if tomorrow the environment is bad, ugly and people are depressed, we need to have solutions.

I believe you can mobilize your students with these questions, but how can we raise awareness among the public authorities, our leaders?

Certainly our leaders are not yet ready, but there has been an evolution. Ten years ago, only the ecological parties were talking about these issues. Today, with the exception of some extremist figures, such as Trump or Bolsonaro, any reasonable political leader addresses these issues. I do not think they can already make the right decisions because the necessary measures would be difficult to explain to the populace. In the near future, this will be one of the central questions: how will we be able to impose the necessary changes on those who have become accustomed to live wasting energy and resources.

Do you think there is a responsibility of architects to deliver this message, for example, to their clients?

In part, yes. When you have a contract with a client, it is not easy to convince them because it may increase costs or change the project so much that they get scared. Events like the Triennale are ideal in this respect because they do not suffer from market pressure; they are free in every sense of the term. If I dedicate my time to such an event like this it is to try to educate society in a way that I can’t in schools, for example. I believe we have a duty to do so.

How wild the Greeks were when, driven by pride and greed, they destroyed Troy. The wounds of the long war, which the invader won with a wooden horse, are now in blood in the hearts of Trojan women, to whom Hecuba, “the once celebrated Queen of Troy, ” gives voice: “I have lost everything: my country, my children, my husband.”

Treated like spoils of war, Trojan women await the fate that the gods (and the Greeks) have in store for them: slavery. It is their drama, among the physical and psychological ruins inflicted upon them, that makes “Troianas” a tragedy of women that more than two millennia after Euripides had written it, remains the canonical text of anti-war theater.

“Our decision of adapting this text for the stage was taken about four years ago and it is quite natural that the whole situation that was lived and, unfortunately, persists, having even worsened, has weighed in the choice,” says António Pires, recalling the rise to power of Donald Trump, the wars in Syria and the Maghreb countries and, consequently, the migration crisis that triggered a succession of tragedies.

 All this “social and political component” is enclosed in “Troianas,” which, now, through a new translation by Luísa Costa Gomes (made from George Theodoridis’s English translation and later revised with Tim Eckert from the Greek), has been made into a “simpler, more straightforward classical piece.” This is, by the way, one of the virtues that Pires emphasizes in this version, which allows the public to “fully visualize each word and very easily grasp the ideas of the author.” Although, as Luísa Costa Gomes points out in the information sheet, Euripides was “an author very little given to ornaments. Nor would such decorations be desired on such painful subjects.”

In a play in which the main protagonists are women, António Pires wanted to reunite some of the actresses with whom he works regularly and greatly admires. In addition to Rueff, the director gave Alexandra Sargento the role of Cassandra, and Sandra Santos the role of Andromache. The young actress Vera Mora, who works for the first time with Pires, plays the beautiful and treacherous Helen of Sparta.

As for the choice of Maria Rueff for the role of Hecuba, the director highlights “the unparalleled ability of comedians to perform tragedy. And Maria has it all: she has the strength, the nerve and the energy that drives the character to always be on edge.”

On stage until August 17, ” Troianas” also has interpretations from João Barbosa, Hugo Mestre Amaro, Francisco Vistas and finalist students of the representation course of the ACT-Escola de Atores.

Recorded in just two nights, January 7th and 8th, 1969, Com que Voz [With what Voice] took 14 months to reach the public, although the genius of a work that will be forever marked in Portuguese music as the happiest meeting of Amália’s voice and Alain Oulman’s music was never in question. Frederico Santiago writes in his booklet accompanying this new edition of the album, these were “two triumphant nights”, the “apogee of others, where a miraculous culmination was prepared (and conquered)”.

The 12 songs that make up the original album (all with poems by the great names of Portuguese poetry, from Camões to David Mourão-Ferreira, Ary dos Santos, Alexandre O’Neill, Pedro Homem de Melo, Cecilia Meireles and Manuel Alegre), this edition joins the unforgettable ensemble of the original album’s nine tracks entitled Com que Voz, as Amor sem casa (with a poem by Teresa Rita Lopes, believed to have been written with the album in mind, although not in its alignment), Amêndoa Amarga (an unreleased version of 1969, year of recording) or the virtually unknown four-guitar version of Cravo de Papel (poem by Antonio de Sousa).

 

But this Com que Voz 2019 holds more and more vibrant surprises, namely the first version of Trova do Vento que Passa (only played by Fontes Rocha and Pedro Leal, and reportedly the one that pleased Oulman most) or the “only alternative take that survived” of Madrugada de Alfama. As if these and other treasures were not enough, this edition includes an excellent essay by the classical pianist Nuno Vieira de Almeida where, after a detailed analysis theme by theme, we conclude that we are looking at a perfect record.

In the year that marks 20 years since the death of unparalleled Amalia and preceding the centenary of her birth, Com que Voz returns to stores in CD edition (coming soon, also on vinyl) and made available on digital platforms Apple music, Spotify and YouTube.

How did you get started in design?

I started graphic work at the age of 15 when I was an industrial lithographer. I attended the School of Decorative Arts António Arroio and dedicated myself professionally to creativity in what concerns the general profession of domestic utilities and techniques of general use. I gradually entered this graphic work and the first works I did, still in Portugal, were visual communication logos that identified companies.

Is that the material that is shown in the Fernando Lemos Designer exhibition?

Yes. The thematic agenda of this exhibition is all about that. This is the first show dedicated specifically to my work as a graphic artist or designer. The idea came from MUDE, and I’m very happy that it’s happening in Lisbon. We have been working on this exhibition since 2017, the year in which the director of MUDE, Barbara Coutinho, invited me. The catalog, which is actually a book, is co-edited by MUDE and Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda. The museum also endorsed a documentary about my work, which is being done by Miguel Gonçalves Mendes and Victor Rocha.

Apart from the exhibition, are there more initiatives concerning your work?

Galeria Ratton and Galeria 111 decided to join this initiative and organize two other exhibitions. Ratton will exhibit my work in tile, for which I made new designs. Galeria 111 shows the latest drawings and watercolors and my photographs from the surrealist era. The Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda will also launch a book of my photographs that includes some unpublished ones.

It is inevitable to ask a question about the Azevedo-Lemos-Vespeira exhibition that in 1952 provoked great controversy and scandal, dragging crowds to Chiado. Can you remember what Lisbon was like at the time?

Our Lisbon had several faces but, in a way, we consideredArmazéns do Chiado the only authentic one. It was a provincial Lisbon, and so it remained for a long time. Our exhibition has, to some extent, breached this Lisbon provincialism, kind of snobbish at the same time, having as an image the poor middle-class pattern of Armazéns do Chiado, where we got inspiration from the manikins themselves and from which we made emblems. But that Lisbon was a difficult place for us because censorship was greater than all that. Art was provided by the SNI (National Information Office) where we had no participation. That is why I considered the Lisbon of those times as the city where the Portuguese were leaving. A city solely with automobiles and offices. A city which the 25th of April came to change. It will be great to return to Lisbon so many years later and feel it very different than from before.

As that reality led you to define yourself as “another Portuguese looking for something better”?

Precisely. I left Portugal in the 50s because I did not want to be one more victim of the fascist dictatorship. I left because I was being chased. The phrase you quoted refers to that time and that reality.

In that exhibition in Chiado you presented a set of photographs, now famous, that through an overlapping technique produced formal surrealism recomposition. How did they come about?

Within the surrealist camp, no one was very interested in using photography. I tried to capture, through a hidden vehicle like photography, the face of the Portuguese people because I thought there was nothing that had shown us the face of our people. The first photographs focused on the faces of my friends within the group.

At this distance, what do you think has been the most important legacy of the surrealist movement?

Surrealism brought joy to a post-war period and had the advantage of being the only territory where dreams spoke the truth. It came about to promote the unveiling of reality. Reality for us does not exist. What exists is what we put into it again everyday. A new trend brought about this unveiling of the concealment that is life and that in some places is a political form of organization to take power. Surrealism seems a lie and it is, as all art is a lie.

In 1952 you decide to leave for Brazil.

I did not come to Brazil to stay. I stayed because I liked it and I adapted. First, I was in Rio de Janeiro and then I settled in São Paulo. In Portugal, freedom was the most difficult thing to get in an authoritarian country where I had felt cloistered since childhood. Here I became free. And it was here that I developed my work as an artist and designer. I did a little bit of everything in terms of graphic design: I created brands, magazine covers, posters, illustrations; in short, everything related to visual communication. I had in São Paulo an industrial design office where I launched a children’s literature publisher, 35mm video collage for marketing and business communication, book covers and posters, films, fabric and tile printing, panels for the metro, exhibitions and commercial spaces, institutional walls for building construction, murals. I drew exhibitions, I did many poetry illustrations and advertisements for various public agencies, tapestries… I also collaborated in ABDI’s foundation—the first Brazilian Industrial Design Association—and I was a teacher and cultural manager. But you know, I kept working from time to time in Portugal. For example, for several years I collaborated with my great friend José-Augusto França in the magazines Arts Colloquium and Letters Colloquium,making illustrations and giving news of culture and arts in Brazil. I remember it was for Colloquium that I wrote a piece about Joaquim Tenreiro. That’s all I’ve been seeing in boxes and crates in my house for the past two years, and it will be displayed in Lisbon at this exhibition, according to the curatorial look of Chico Homem de Melo and the exhibition design of Nuno Gusmão, two graphic designers by training. One Brazilian, the other Portuguese…

What else changed with your going to Brazil?

There was a great change in the sense that I became free, I became someone else. Brazil is a country of creativity. The way they speak is, in itself, creative. This insistence saying it is the same language is not true. In Brazil there is no language, there is communication. It was in Brazil that I learned to distinguish the face of the Portuguese people from that of Brazilians, and this influenced my creative method. Creation does not happen by chance. It happens because of the culture we live in and, here, a lot of people helped me make sense of what I hadn’t understood.

You say that you are always a designer in everything you do. Could you elaborate on that?

I say that because I’m very graphic. I make everything with a graphic vision. I understand design as the psychoanalytic study of dreams. Design is what happens, not just what is thought. Design is not synonymous with drawing. It is an idea that takes the specific shape of the content. It is the intention of an idea.

The Lisbon Festivities officially open at 7:30 p.m on June 1. In Alameda D. Afonso Henriques in the direction of Fonte Luminosa, Tatiana-Mosio Bongonga, currently one of the world’s greatest tightrope artists, will walk 300 meters on a tightrope at a height of 33 meters. In Linhas Voadoras, the acrobat co-founder of Companhia Basinga (France) and her peers will challenge gravity, accompanied by live music from the Armada Band.

As the Festivities begin on World Children’s Day, it is worth highlighting two activities for the young: in Jardim da Quinta das Conchas, Guardar Segredo invites children to enter two wardrobes to discover the most secret of secrets in a show forming part of the commemorative program for the 125th anniversary of São Luiz Theater; while elsewhere in the city, to be precise, in Calçada da Ajuda, LU.CA – Luís de Camões Theater celebrates its first anniversary with various shows, street performances, artistic expression workshops, readings and other surprises.

The traditional popular procession, floats, displays and marriages of Saint Anthony return to the streets. On the longest night of the month (June 12), 16 pairs of newlyweds, 23 procession participants and 1 guest party, the Marcha Popular de Ribeira de Frades, will parade down Avenida da Liberdade under the aegis of the popular Saint.

Speaking of weddings, the now customary program Fado no Castelo proposes an unlikely coupling: singers of the “Fado” tradition, Ana Moura and Raquel Tavares, will “marry” this type of song with other musical styles. On June 14, Ana Moura will accompany the traditional a capella music of the group Sopa de Pedra; the following night, Raquel Tavares will perform with the black gospel music of the Gospel Collective.

Among several dozens of proposals, Festival highlights include another edition of the Com’Paço festival, which once again presents philharmonic bands from all over the country in two city gardens, including for the first time Alameda D. Afonso Henriques, which will be the stage of the closing concert featuring the young musical band Com’Paço’19 and Anabela as guests (June 22). Also highlighted are the intercultural Lisboa Mistura, which this year moves to Quinta das Conchas (June 8-10), and the Diversity Festival in Ribeira das Naus (June 29-30).

To conclude, on June 29, in Torre de Belém Garden, the closing is marked by a unique concert put together especially for the occasion dedicated to Antonio Variações who in 2019 would have turned 75 years of age. His songs will be recreated on stage by Ana Bacalhau, Conan Osiris, Lena D’Água, Manuela Azevedo, Paulo Bragança and Selma Uamusse, accompanied by the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa and symphonic arrangements by Filipe Melo, Filipe Raposo and Pedro Moreira.

The full program of Lisbon Festivities can be found here.

The festival’s masked men come from afar – from the north of the Iberian Peninsula, central Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Colombia, and Macao – to celebrate a tradition whose origins are lost in time, a time when men lived in harmony with nature. In Portugal, it is mostly in Trás-os-Montes that the memory of these ancient rites – celebrated during the Winter Festivities, which begin with the Winter Solstice (December 21) and run until Shrovetide – is kept alive. In these festivities, which merge pagan and Christian elements, masks take center stage. Behind them are men who in days of yore had to be single, thus replicating initiation rituals or ceremonies of purification, fertility, and fecundity. Nowadays, due to the exodus and aging of rural communities, rules have changed and all men can take part in these rituals. Dressed in colorful woolen costumes and terrifying masks – which, in some cases, are passed down from generation to generation – these men run through the streets to the sound of bagpipes and cowbells. They take on the role of otherworldly creatures who, in a complex world made up of rites, magic and symbolism, would purge the evils of the community. See them in all their splendor.

 

‘Caretos’ of Grijó (Bragança)

‘Caretos’ take the streets of Grijó da Parada during the Feasts of St. Stephen, the patron saint of boys (December 26-27). The rituals probably date back to the Celtic era, and are led by the ‘King’ and the ‘Bishop’. With their bright, colorful woolen garments, where red predominates, and their brass masks with protruding tongues, they entertain the audience with shouts, jumps and the sound of cowbells, whose number varies according to the richness of the costume. They carry a staff that is used to discipline the audience and a pig bladder which, according to some scholars, suggests fecundity.

‘Máscaros’ of Vila Boa (Vinhais, Bragança)

Originally, they would take the streets on the occasion of the Feasts of St. Stephen.  Now it is during Mardi Gras that small groups of masked men ‘attack’ neighboring villages in search of their ‘victims’ – single girls. Known as ‘cochalhadas’ (from ‘chocalhos’, or ‘cowbells’), these ‘assaults’ on women used to have a sexual purpose, associated with fecundation. For this reason, in days of yore, young girls would watch the festivities from the window, while married women would be barred from going out by their husbands.  Bedecked with fringes, the colorful woolen costumes of Vila Boa’s ‘Máscaros’ contrast with their devilish masks, which are knife-carved out of chestnut wood or tinplate.

‘Caretos’ of Podence (Macedo de Cavaleiros)

They stand out for their red tinplate masks, tricolored woolen costumes (yellow, green, and red) and hood, which features a braid (the ‘tip of the tail’) that is used for whipping young girls. They brighten Podence’s ‘Entrudo Chocalheiro’ (‘Cowbell Shrovetide’), which is considered the most genuine in the country – hence the candidacy to UNESCO Intangible Heritage status in 2018. Characterized by banquets, masquerades and dances, these festivals – which correspond to the Roman Bacchanalia in March – celebrate the ancient connection with nature, agriculture and fertility.

‘Cardadores’ of Vale de Ílhavo (Ílhavo)

On Fat Sunday and Mardi Gras, ‘Cardadores’ (‘Cardingers’) emerge from everywhere, heralded by the deafening noise of the cowbells on their waist. As the name implies, this tradition is associated with the carding of wool, which is here transfigured into the ‘carding’ of girls. Preparations for the festival are made by men under great secrecy, evoking ancient initiation rituals. The costume consists of women’s underwear, a ‘tricana’ scarf, socks, and sneakers. The mask, which is highly sophisticated and can weigh up to 5 kg, is made of cloth, cork, bovine mustaches, two bird wings, ‘gazetas’ (ribbons), and candle yarn. All wrapped in Tabu perfume.
‘Caretos’ of Lagoa (Mira)

Lagoa is the only place with ‘caretos’ in the municipality of Mira.  Their Mardi Gras parades are an ancient tradition, but its exact origin is unknown. Yet its connection with pagan initiation rituals into adulthood seems indisputable. Known as ‘campinas’, the painted masks of these ‘caretos’ are bedecked with animal horns and skin. They wear red skirts, which evoke sin, and a white shirt, symbolizing purity. They carry the mandatory cowbells in leather straps.
Los Carnavales de Villanueva de Valrojo (Zamora)

Due to its ancestry and originality, the Mardi Gras of Villanueva de Valrojo has attained great fame in the Spanish province of Zamora. The festivities evoke ancient pagan rites of purification and fertility. Masked men wearing colorful costumes and masks (made of plastic, cork or copper) chase girls through the streets with their long pincers.

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