In October 1893, a new music teaching institution was founded in Lisbon — the Instituto Musical —, which operated in a building in Largo de São Roque and offered classes in rudiments, piano, violin, cello, singing and harmony, having several teachers in common with the Royal Conservatory of Lisbon and the Real Academia de Amadores de Música.¹ At the turn of the following academic year, 1894-1895, despite the first dissent that occurred, the institution still operated with new classes of woodwinds, brass, harp and organ. But the project that gained greater visibility in this second year of activity was the presentation of Les pêcheurs de perles, by Bizet, and La sonnambula, by Bellini, by the school’s students and the direction of professor Alfredo de Freitas Gazul. Although it is not clear whether in a staged version or a concert version, these performances took place at Teatro Avenida, with the collaboration of a choir recruited in Badajoz, on the 24th and 26th of November 1894, and were repeated on the 8th and 9th of December. Later, presenting themselves as the Companhia Portuguesa de Ópera Lírica dos Estudantes do Instituto Musical de Lisboa, the same protagonists would perform in three shows at the Teatro Garcia de Resende, in Évora, and at the end of the academic year some of the singing students would go on a tour that passed through several cities in the North of the country.² However, the institution does not appear to have survived this second year of activity.
