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Operafest was conceived as an event which unifies varied Institutions, not only national  but worldwide, empowering sinergies and talent around a project mainly focused on promoting both Portuguese and international opera market, contributing to the creation of new body of opera repertoire, giving opportunities and highlighting new composers, musicians, conductors, singers, creative teams and clearly investing  in fresh talent. Operafest Lisboa finally introduces Portugal in the itinerary of innovative Summer Opera Festivals al fresco, for the originality of its programming organized in cycles, with the clear ambition of reaching out all kinds of new opera audiences, meeting different interests and affinities.
 
Born during pandemic times  Operafest finally placed Lisbon and Portugal in International Opera Festivals circuit . And with limited resources but with a great deal of creativity and audacity received great international critics, was a ticket office success and reached already an unexpected variety of audiences, non habitual opera or classical musical consumers, being this phenomenon already object of study by PHD students from Lisbon University. Thanks to its programing combining tradition and vanguardism, built in varied cycles, Operafest is committed to meet concrete necessities of Portuguese operatic market,  diverse audiences and the urgency opera has, of re-inventing itself to get closer to the world and the audience of today.
 
In only two Editions, Operafest Lisboa mamaged to bring  a total new dynamic to the Portuguese operatic ecosystem, presenting 9 absolute premieres and launching the only national contemporary opera contest and Award - Maratona Ópera XXI, showcasing a all new generation of not only composers but interpreters as well and fostering contemporary opera.
 
It has also been stage and space of experiment and development to singers, musicians, conductors, stage directors, set designers, prop designers an other creatives but also to producers, machinists and other technical staff at beginning of their career, to make their talent and skills grow.
 
Operafest Lisboa refuses the predatory practice of Non-Paid work, excluding Non-Paid internship or volunteering, considering it a form of dissimulated working exploitation.

This Festival assumingly invests in young talent and youth work dignification. It has a percentage of  young people until 25 years old in full autonomy working places in at least 30% of its activity (production, design, audio, technic, musicians, singers, actors, dancers) and gender parity, already in the person of its general director.

It also declares itself ecological, promoting recycling and economy of resources in all stages of opera production, promoting public transportation and avoiding pollution and creation of garbage and plastics, not only within its direct activities, as well as in the activities of associated partners and merchandising.

Lisbon, Portugal

OperaFest Lisboa

Festival

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Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

2023

2022

2021

2020

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Carmen OperaFest

O Homem dos Sonhos - ANTÓNIO CHAGAS ROSA
10 SET | 21h00 - Jardim do Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga

Ópera em 7 Cenas
Cantado em Português
 
“Eu dominei os sonhos. Sonho o que quero. Vivo o que quero.”
 
O Operafest 2022 dedicado ao destino em vertigem, encerra em grande com este projeto “sonhado” desde há longa data, pelo compositor António Chagas Rosa, inspirado na matéria dramática e visionária da obra de Mário de Sá-Carneiro, a partir do seu conto homónimo, resultante de uma encomenda da Ópera do Castelo ao compositor. Aclamada pelo público e crítica quando da sua estreia absoluta no Teatro São Luiz em Fevereiro passado, com a encenação brilhante de Miguel Loureiro.

Construída em sete cenas, reflete sobre a condição humana, sobre o ténue fio entre a loucura e a sanidade, entre o sonho e realidade, resumindo a eterna insatisfação humana e a sua continua obsessão em transcender limites de tempo, de espaço e de género. E ainda sobre o fascínio premonitório e estruturante do próprio sonho, já que é ele afinal que modela e guia o ser humano na sua marcha existencial, enquanto sociedade global e enquanto indivíduo. Tudo o que somos já foi porventura sonhado e transformado em matéria visível.
 
Um misterioso e elegante homem (encarnado pelo soprano Catarina Molder, o alter-ego do poeta)  conseguiu atingir a suprema felicidade, ao transcender a barreira do sonho, ultrapassando a fastidiosa rotina da vida, e viver tudo o que sonhava: viajava em sonho a países de cores novas e indescritíveis, a cidades onde o gás que se respirava era composto por música, a países onde havia mais do que dois sexos, onde a alma era visível e o corpo justamente não…
 
Direcção musical: Jan Wierzba
Direcção cénica: Miguel Loureiro
Cenografia: André Guedes
Figurinos: João Telmo
Desenho de luz: Daniel Worm
Adaptação desenho de Luz: Ricardo Campos
Operação de Luz: Sérgio Moreira
 
Catarina Molder (soprano), homem dos Sonhos
Christian Luján (barítono), poeta
Vasco Santos e Pedro Santos, actores
 
Ensemble MPMP
 
Produção: Ópera do Castelo
Co-produção: Teatro São Luiz, Teatro Viriato

- - - ENG - - -

The Man of Dreams  - ANTÓNIO CHAGAS ROSA
10 SEP | 21h00 - Garden of Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga
 
Opera in 7 Scenes
Sung in Portuguese
Subtitled in English
Length: 1h30
 
"I’ve mastered dreams. I dream what I want. I live what I want."
 
Dedicated to Destiny in vertigo, Operafest 2022 closes big with this long dreamt project inspired by the dramatic and visionary novel of the same name from Mário De Sá Carneiro, commissioned by Opera do Castelo (2022, Teatro São Luiz). Acclaimed by critics and audience with the brilliant staging of Miguel Loureiro, can now be experienced in open air, in the "dream" garden of MNAA… right after, enjoy the operatic rave "Masked ball to defy destiny", a dancing operatic party with multiple surprises!
 
This opera throughout its 7 scenes reflects on the human condition, on the thin line between madness and sanity, dream and reality, assuming humanity’s eternal in-satisfaction and its continuous obsession with transcending the limits of time, space and gender. It’s also about the premonitory and structuring fascination of the dream itself, given that it’s the dream that models and guides humanity in its existential path, both as a global society and as individuals. All that we are has perchance been dreamt and transformed into visible matter.
 
A mysterious and elegant man (embodied by the soprano Catarina Molder, the poet’s alter-ego) has managed to reach supreme happiness, by transcending the border of dreams, overcoming the fastidious life’s routine, and living all which was dreamt: travelling in dreams to countries of new and indescribable colours, to cities where the gas they breathed was made of music, to countries with more than two genders, where the soul was visible and the body, fairly, was not…
 
Musical direction: Jan Wierzba
Stage direction: Miguel Loureiro
Set Design: André Guedes
Props: João Telmo
Light Design: Daniel Worm
Light Design adaptation: Ricardo Campos
Light Operation: Sérgio Moreira
 
Catarina Molder (soprano), man of dreams
Christian Luján (baritone), poet
Vasco Santos and Pedro Santos, actors
 
Ensemble MPMP
 
Production: Ópera do Castelo
Co-production: Teatro São Luiz, Teatro Viriato

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