Criticultura em Portugal

For some reason, Portugal’s only opera house doesn’t get much attention among classical music discussions here. That’s a shame, since the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is an architectural gem from the 18 th century and, based on the Verdi Falstaff that I heard on May 13, the musical quality there can be very high. The opera house opened in 1793, replacing a structure destroyed in the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755. It’s had a checkered history, ranging from an uber-famous performance of Verdi's La Traviata  in 1958 starting Maria Callas (the “Lisbon Traviata” of recording fame) to its being shuttered for much of the Salazar dictatorship in the mid-20 th century. Now the company performs about 7-8 productions each season. There is international leadership--the principal conductor is Italian Antonio Pirolli, and the artistic director is the Dutch Ivo von Kalmthout. The house’s baroque façade was recently restored..the opera house is hidden away on an enclosed square in do

Oddly, I had never before been to a Metropolitan Opera Live in HD performance until this month. This is mainly because I could see them live when I lived in the USA. I finally corrected this lapse, snagging the last remaining seat (!) in the 1200 seat Gulbenkian Auditorium for Verdi's  La Forza del Destino , the first new Met production in over 30 years, and only their 10th performance this century. More on that in a minute. First I will share my experience of seeing the Met live, but at a distance.  As you arrive in the auditorium the screen is showing slides of upcoming Met performances, rather like at a movie theater.    What you hear is the buzz of arriving guests at the Metropolitan Opera house in NYC, which is kind of a cool way of building excitement. The Gulbenkian auditorium filled, largely with older Portuguese people (seats cost about 20 euros) dressed as they would for any concert. You then see the orchestra arrive into the pit, and hear some interviews backstage, here

 The Oscars have come and gone, with a predictable blockbuster winning best picture. Hollywood seemed excited to have finally put COVID limitations aside, and was thrilled to have the summer hit "Barbenheimer" surgically-joined twins that got people into theaters (these twins need to be forevermore separated). But was it a good year for film, really? I don't think so. Of the 10 films nominated for best picture, I only really want to see a few again, and one excellent film didn't even get nominated. So here are my thoughts, with the 10 nominees grouped into clusters. At the end I will list these in my order of preference. What's your order? Ponderous, "Important" Movies: Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon Guys, I like many long movies. I was gripped by long movies as different as Lanzmann's  Shoah   (7+hours), Scarface ( 3 hours), and Titanic ( 2 hours, 40 minutes), and by the operas of Wagner, often clocking in at over 3 1/2 hours. The issue is

 Two recent concerts gave me mixed feelings about our premier local professional orchestra, the Gulbenkian. I continue to be impressed with the excellent ensemble and sonority, especially in the brass section. But one thing I am noticing is that unlike, say, the Vienna Philharmonic, this orchestra is not immune to conductor quality, and can be made to play in a meh or even shaky way when the conductor is deficient. So on the good nights, they are fantastic, and can equal my experience listening to world class orchestras. On bad nights, not so much.  This week's performance of the Mahler Symphony #1   in D major (1888) and the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor  (1866) was a good example. There are some idiosyncrasies of the Gulbenkian Auditorium and the Orchestra that many conductors manage to overcome. For example, the woodwinds and brass commonly overpower the strings, or a soloist. In the lovely Bruch concerto, the excellent soloist Karen Goymo, who plays regularly with orch

 In the past week I sampled some interesting and varied cultural fare in the area during the lead up to the Carnaval season here. Here are some quick impressions.  Theater: The best English language theater company in town is the Lisbon Players. Their most recent effort was Pussycat: in Memory of Darkness , a 70 minute monologue by Ukrainian playwright Neda Nezhdana (seen below), written to show the perspective of residents of eastern Ukraine during the devastating 2014 Russian invasion. This play was performed last year in London, and the Lisbon players imported the solo performer Kristen Milward for these shows. This playwright is seeing her plays performed around the world as companies seek to present the Ukrainian perspective of the ongoing war against Russia. This play was harrowing, and unrelievedly angry. Ms. Milward ably held the stage with a range of intense emotions, with text derived from interviews from real victims of the invasion. Unfortunately I eventually grew weary of