Pensar é morrer, ou, O Teatro de São Carlos
Subtitle: na mudança de sistemas sociocomunicativos desde fins do séc. XVIII aos nossos dias
By: Mário Vieira de Carvalho.
Series: Temas portugueses; Temas portugueses (Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda)
Publisher: Impr. Nacional-Casa da Moeda
Published: 1993
Place of publication: [Lisbon]
Language: por
Number of pages: 454
Subjects: Teatro Nacional de São Carlos.; Opera -- Portugal -- Lisbon.; History and Sociology of Opera
Genres: Sociological Essay
Other titles: Pensar é morrer.; Teatro de São Carlos.
Description: Under the perspective of the theory of systems and communication theory, this book investigates institucional, political, social and cultural aspects of the opera in Portugal, taking particularly into account the Lisbon Opera House (Teatro Nacional de São Carlos). The opera is seen as a system of social communication in structural connexion with the transformations of the public sphere. From the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, on the basis of a huge amount of empirical sources (archivistic material, periodicals, literary works, legislation, etc.) the author identifies different models of communication whose emergence cannot be separated from the social and political environment. The prevalence of a 'coloquial structure' of communication during the romantic era (until the end of the 19th century), in which the illusionistic presentation of the opera performance as a whole was far from being stabilised, cannot be understood without considering the difficulties of establishing in Portugal a strong bourgeois public sphere, as well as helps to better understand those difficulties. Only at the beginning of the 20th century 'perfect illusion' on the stage and empathy of the audience - the bourgeois model of communication introduced by the enlightened theory and praxis of opera since the 1770's years - has begun to be stabilised in Portugal. Although the enligthened discourse of the educative role of theatre and opera appears in Portugal quite uptodate, in 1771, in a petition of businessmen that Joseph I and his minister Pombal approved, the social and political forces at work did not allow the transference of those ideas into the praxis. With the end of the period of enlightened Despotism and the coronation of Maria I (1777), the influence of the Catholic Church in the Court became so strong as in earlier times, so that the building of the Opera House (Teatro São Carlos) in 1793, a project in which the businessmen of Lisbon were again engaged, had to be justified has a source of income for a charity institution ('Casa Pia'). The enlightened discourse from the 1770's was thus abandoned to give place to the old concept introduced since 1588 by Philip II of Spain, I of Portugal, according to which every theatrical performances were considered forms of entertainment morally suspect that might be only tolerated if part of the revenues revert to charity. The change of the 'coloquial structure' of communication to an effective 'presentational structure', including the ideal of 'perfect illusion' on the stage, the reception of the opera performance as a whole, and the silence, concentration and empathy of the spectator, takes place definitively only after the establishment of the Republic (1910). In this sense, the Republican programme on the cultural field can be seen as a late fully realisation and development of the ideas of the Enlightenment, in that it committed to all art forms a decisive role in the education of the people. The potential of the Republican reforms was, however, interrupted by the Fascist putch of 1926. In the era of 'Estado Novo' the Opera House became above all, since its reopening in 1940, a representative theatre, a kind of 'official reception hall' in which the power and financial elites exhibit themselves and demonstrated their 'heterogeneity' (G. Bataille) before the common people. Such transformations of the sociocommunicative systems are analysed having in view the key motive of the relation music-words in the opera, notably, the lack of a tradition of opera in Portuguese language. Hostility to theater for religious reasons caused the ban of theatre perfomances in Portuguese language from the court since Gil Vicente's dead. Since mid 16th century and until the beginning of 18th century, a kind of court self-censorship did not allow but performances of tragicomedies in Latin language produced by the colleges of Jesuits. Under the reign of João V, from the beginning of the 18th century to 1750, only Italian opera began to be represented at the court. In the meanwhile, retaking a tradition interrupted since Gil Vicente's death, a kind of 'Singspiel' (or musical comedy) in Portuguese language had begun to be represented in 1733 in a public theatre. This musical comedies, with a satirical content and represented by puppets, disappear although tragically from the stage in 1739, when the Inquisition ordered the burning of their author, the playwright António José da Silva, "The Jew" (the author of the music was António Teixeira). As to the Teatro de São Carlos, although being the first State Theatre since its inauguration in 1793, it became an Italian Theatre, in which even Portuguese composers had to write their music on Italian librettos. The whole repertoire was ever sung in Italian language during the 19th century. Despite its 'nationalistic claims' also the Estado Novo did not given any relevant support to the building of a tradition of Portuguese opera. The absence of such a tradition - expressed even in the extreme rarity of translations into Portuguese of repertoire originally created in other languages - is one of the factors that has blocked until today the development of an own opera culture in Portugal.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 379-412) and indexes.
Table of contents: label: Apresentação
pagenum: 13; label: Abreviaturas
pagenum: 19; label: I
pagenum: 21
title: A dessemantização da palavra cantada: sobre a evolução da música e do teatro em Portugal até à fundação do Teatro de São Carlos (1793); title: O serviço de Deus e a hostilidade à ópera
pagenum: 21; title: A introdução da ópera italiana e a liquidação de um teatro musical português
pagenum: 30; title: Contradições do iluminismo em Portugal
pagenum: 39; title: A fundação do Teatro de São Carlos como "teatro da corte para a burguesia"
pagenum: 50; label: II
pagenum: 65
title: A palavra ao público: o Teatro de São Carlos no século XIX; title: 1. A revolução liberal e a consolidação da ópera com a função de prestígio e divertimento
pagenum: 65; title: 2. O Teatro de São Carlos como "Passeio Público" do romantismo
pagenum: 71; title: 3.  As estreitas relações entre palco e sala
pagenum: 76; title: 4.  Ilusão e realidade
pagenum: 84; title: 5. A ópera e a reforma teatral do setembrismo
pagenum: 96; title: 5.1. A vida teatral em Lisboa em 1835 e a Revolução de Setembro
pagenum: 96; title: 5.2. Atraso do "aburguesamento" na música e no teatro
pagenum: 100; title: 5.3. Absorção do Teatro Nacional na estrutura de comunicação da ópera italiana
pagenum: 106; title: 5.4. A ópera excluída do teatro
pagenum: 109; title: 6. Bel canto italiano e repressão da criatividade nacional
pagenum: 111; title: 6.1. Subalternização do Teatro Nacional relativamente ao Teatro Italiano
pagenum: 111; title: 6.2. 'Bel canto' italiano como necessidade cultural
pagenum: 114; title: 6.3. Cantar e representar
pagenum: 116; title: 6.4. Cantar e 'ganir'
pagenum: 120; title: 6.5. A repercussão de Offenbach no desenvolvimento do realismo na literatura
pagenum: 122; title: 6.6. O teatro de Offenbach e a crítica das relações de comunicação cominantes
pagenum: 126; label: III
pagenum: 131
title: O caminho falhado para o 'drama-de-palavra-e-som': das vésperas da república ao advento do fascismo; title: 1. O Teatro de São Carlos nas vésperas da república
pagenum: 131; title: 1.1. A introdução de Wagner como necessidade de "civilização"
pagenum: 131; title: 1.2. Espectáculos wagnerianos e concorrência empresarial
pagenum: 139; title: 1.3. Ópera-divertimento e snobismo
pagenum: 143; title: 2. A tomada de consciência de 'ópera' e 'drama'
pagenum: 147; title: 2.1. Balanço por ocasião da estreia de 'Lohengrin' em Lisboa (1883)
pagenum: 147; title: 2.2. Da arte 'com ideias' e 'sem ideias'
pagenum: 150; title: 2.3. Da 'praxis' de representação italiana
pagenum: 153; title: 2.4. Da consideração da cena
pagenum: 156; title: 2.5. Da consideração da orquestra
pagenum: 156; title: 2.6. Da descoberta da fábula
pagenum: 158; title: 2.7. Da capacidade dos intérpretes
pagenum: 161; title: 2.8. Da obra de arte total
pagenum: 164; title: 3. A aprendizagem da 'música absoluta'
pagenum: 166; title: 3.1. Sobre a evolução da insituição concerto
pagenum: 166; title: 3.2. Popularização da obra de Wagner como música de concerto
pagenum: 168; title: 3.3. Ópera e herança sinfónica
pagenum: 171; title: 3.4. Música absoluta e drama musical
pagenum: 173; title: 4. Repercussão ideológico-cultural de Wagner
pagenum: 176; title: 4.1. Penetração de Wagner na literatura e na imprensa
pagenum: 176; title: 4.2. Do sentimento nacional de decadência ao 'princípio do chefe'
pagenum: 177; title: 4.3. Parsifal contra Siegfried
pagenum: 180; title: 4.4. Cristianismo, Schopenhauer, Gobineau contra Feuerbach
pagenum: 184; title: 4.5. Emoção contra entendimento
pagenum: 186; title: 4.6. Neotomismo contra racionalismo
pagenum: 190; title: 5. O Teatro de São Carlos nos anos vinte
pagenum: 193; title: 5.1. Solicitações culturais e snobismo
pagenum: 193; title: 5.2. Rentabilidade de Wagner no quadro da 'praxis' italiana
pagenum: 200; title: 5.3. Prosseguimento das controvérsias em torno de 'ópera' e 'drama'
pagenum: 206; label: IV
pagenum: 213
title: A palavra morta: O Teatro de São Carlos sob o fascismo; title: 1. A reabertura do Teatro de São Carlos em 1940 como 'sala de visitas de Portugal'
pagenum: 213; title: 2. Ópera e estetização da política
pagenum: 218; title: 2.1. Um modelo de teatro populista
pagenum: 218; title: 2.2. Excurso: da natureza do fascismo em Portugal
pagenum: 220; title: 2.3. Um modelo de teatro representativo
pagenum: 225; title: 3. Cultura musical e propaganda do Estado
pagenum: 228; title: 4. Língua original ou censura encoberta
pagenum: 237; title: 5. Resistência antifascista e politização da arte
pagenum: 242; label: V
pagenum: 255
title: Em busca da palavra cantada: perspectivas de desenvolvimento do teatro musical em Lisboa; label: Notas
pagenum: 265; title: Capítulo I
pagenum: 265; title: Capítulo II
pagenum: 277; title: Capítulo III
pagenum: 287; title: Capítulo IV
pagenum: 295; title: Capítulo V
pagenum: 299; label: Anexos
pagenum: 303; title: I - Teatro dos Jesuítas em Portugal (1550-1739)
pagenum: 303; title: II - Actividades músico-teatrais no século XVIII em Lisboa
pagenum: 308; title: A) Época de João V: corte (1733-1742)
pagenum: 308; title: B) Época de João V: teatros públicos [I]  (1735-1742)
pagenum: 309; title: C) Época de João V. teatros públicos [II] (1733-1741)
pagenum: 310; title: D) Época de José I: corte (1752-1777)
pagenum: 311; title: E) Época de José I: teatros públicos (1765-1774)
pagenum: 317; title: F) Época de Maria I: corte (1777-1792)
pagenum: 320; title: G) Época de Maria I: teatros públicos  (1784-1792)
pagenum: 326; title: Resumos estatísticos e gráficos
pagenum: 328; title: III - Óperas e outras obras estreadas no Teatro de São Carlos de 1793 a 1816
pagenum: 338; title: IV - Óperas e outras obras estreadas no Teatro de São Carlos de 1817 a 1882
pagenum: 347; title: V - Temporadas do Teatro de São Carlos: evolução do repertório e estatítica das representações de 1882 a 1924
pagenum: 358; title: VI - Óperas e outras obras estreadas no Teatro de São Carlos de 1925 a 1991
pagenum: 370; label: Fontes e bibliografia
pagenum: 379; title: I - Arquivos e bibliotecas
pagenum: 379; title: II - Publicações periódicas
pagenum: 379; title: III - Autores e obras
pagenum: 382; label: Índices
pagenum: 415; title: Índice onomástico e ideográfico
pagenum: 415; title: Índice de obras musicais e músico-teatrais
pagenum: 443