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Carnaval

Teatro Camões, Lisbon

Carnaval: a fantasy after Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of Animals.

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Synopsis

Carnaval will be assembled after Camille Saint-Saëns’ (1835-1921) Carnival of the Animals, composed in 1886. One of the peculiarities of this work is the appropriation of works from other composers as well from Saint-Saëns former works which are revisited in a parody-like tone and disguised under animal names. Although Saint-Saëns’ original title is abridged, Carnaval  will resort to a similar technique (even if reverse) of composition. Several contemporary Portuguese composers will compose an original theme associated to the Carnival of the Animals‘ fourteen movements. To achieve this, they will be challenged to use another artistic technique whose fame and heyday date back to the European 20th century and that was prolific in inspiring several other artistic currents: the cadavre-exquis. In other words, in Carnaval each guest composer will begin his composition at the end of the previous theme, leading it to the following one.

Aside these more technically specific issues involving the musical composition, articulation of the concepts inside/and between each movement, attunement and contrast between each guest composer, there is a set of other subjects we wish to work up in Carnaval. On the one hand, it is ineluctably called into question the symbolic significance – be it Christian or pagan – of Carnival and of all other problematic cultural and philosophical matters that revolve around this symbol.

As a mock display, there is in Carnaval an evident approach  to the more cardinal issues put by, for instance, theatre and dance, – the mask, the lie, the simulation, the vicissitude, the audience’s complicity in what all know it is a make-believe. The fluctuation between reality and farce is moreover what sustains either an artistic gesture or a carnival-like disguise. Or, on the other side, the existence of a character or of a mythological being. It is also for this reason that Carnaval will be indwelt by imaginary creatures – sirens, unicorns, the phoenix, the faun –, which will acquire onstage the same ontological dimension as the animals of Nature.

Although traditions have been disappearing over time, the Christian Carnival gains a complete different significance and is deeply rooted in western culture. We are referring here to sacrifice, abstinence, fasting, rituals for the celebration of earthly and worldly life in a gradual nearing to death evoked from Ash Wednesday till Easter Sunday.

The ritualizing of the celebration of life and acceptance of death ends up then by becoming a fascinating aspect of Christian culture. Animals, masks and death – not necessarily by this order – will be the main subjects of this Carnaval which, undoubtedly, seeks inspiration in an Adília Lopes’ poem.

Performance Details

Choreographer and Director | Victor Hugo Pontes

Music | Camille Saint-Saëns, Sérgio Azevedo, Carlos Caires, Eurico Carrapatoso, Andreia Pinto Correia, Nuno Corte-Real, Pedro Faria Gomes, Mário Laginha, João Madureira, Carlos Marecos, Daniel Schvetz, Luís Tinoco e António Pinho Vargas 

Stage sets | F. Ribeiro

Costumes | Aleksandar Protic

Light designer | Wilma Moutinho 

Music consultant | Cesário Costa

Assistant choreographer | Marco da Silva Ferreira

National Ballet Company dancers

Conductor | Cesário Costa

 

Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa

Principal Conductor | Joana Carneiro

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