Portuguese Opera Company

In 1962, the building of the Teatro da Trindade was acquired by the F.N.A.T. (Federação Nacional para a Alegria no Trabalho, under the Ministry of Corporations), which the following year sponsored the creation of a Companhia Portuguesa de Ópera, based in that venue and directed by José Serra Formigal.¹ The initiative aimed to establish a centre for the training and production of opera with Portuguese singers, as well as to present popular performances of opera and operetta, within a strategy of so-called “mass education.” To that end, it included a Centre for the Training and Advanced Study of Lyric Artists, in which the tenor Tomás Alcaide and the baritone Gino Bechi stood out as principal instructors. The company brought together several professional singers (such as Álvaro Malta, Hugo Casais, Maria Cristina de Castro and Zuleica Saque), as well as others at the beginning of their careers (including Elisete Bayan, Elsa Saque, José Oliveira Lopes and Vasco Gil). In addition, the company collaborated with other institutions and prominent figures in Lisbon’s musical and theatrical scene: the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, existing orchestras, leading conductors (Álvaro Cassuto, Manuel Ivo Cruz and Joaquim da Silva Pereira, among others), and renowned stage directors (Álvaro Benamor, António Manuel Couto Viana, Gino Bachi and Tomás Alcaide). The opera season, comprising four or five operas, took place between May and July, and extended into tours that reached the colonies, Spain and Belgium. As for the repertoire, the company mainly performed the most popular Italian and French operas of the nineteenth century, as well as some works by Portuguese composers.² Despite its ambitions and the investment involved, the initiative was not successful in renewing the operatic landscape in Portugal.³