Having earned the moniker of “The Portuguese Riviera,” the sunny seaside resort town of Cascais in Portugal, located some 25 miles west of Lisbon, has a centuries-old storied tradition of attracting celebrities and royals from all over Europe, who succumb to its irresistible charms: sunny seaside promenades, idyllic beaches, fishing villages, and the picturesque historical town center. Coming next spring, {…}
(Photo: ©António Pedro Ferreira) An exciting production of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” closed the 2022-23 season of Lisbon’s Teatro Nacional de São Carlos this past week, bringing a fitting conclusion on a high note to the challenging tenure of Elisabete Matos as the Artistic Director of Portugal’s premier opera house. Rendered in a lively staging by Stefano Vizioli, Maestro António Pirolli {…}
Philip Glass celebrated his 85th birthday last week on January 31, and Lisbon’s Centro Cultural de Bélem joined a handful of worldwide performances honoring the great American maverick composer with a dazzling world-class production of his early opera “Orphée,” composed in 1991 and part of Glass’ groundbreaking trilogy of operas based on films by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. {…}
Opera performances resumed at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon earlier this year as Portugal’s handling of the pandemic was widely praised as possibly the best within the European Union. In Lisbon, ensembles large and small have begun filling up local church series, community performance spaces, and neighborhood stages, while fado singers have returned to smokey late-night bars {…}
