Luís Soldado

Dedicated to challenging the boundaries of opera and making it a living art form for contemporary audiences, Luís Soldado focuses his work on developing new forms of communication and dialogue within the lyric genre. He is the founder and Artistic Director of AREPO – Opera and Contemporary Arts, and shares his expertise as an Assistant Professor in the Master’s Program in Performing Arts at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon.

His portfolio is marked by continuous innovation in format and by a recurring artistic collaboration with writer Rui Zink, responsible for the librettos, and stage director Linda Valadas. Among his most notable creations are works that intersect music with other artistic languages. These include the soundtrack for the silent film Os Lobos, presented at the Barbican Centre in London; the series of seven television mini-operas Super Diva – Opera for All, broadcast on RTP2; and the opera-film O Fauno das Montanhas, conceived as a true “silent opera.”

He has also brought opera into public space through the community street opera É Possível Resistir in Torres Vedras, and explored literary references in works such as The Raven (inspired by Edgar Allan Poe), Tabacaria (based on Álvaro de Campos), and The Flowers of Evil (after Charles Baudelaire). He also premiered A Arte Suprema, an opera in comic-book format based on the graphic novel by Rui Zink and António Jorge Gonçalves.

With works presented at venues such as the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, where Fado Olissiponense premiered, his career has also gained international visibility. Highlights include the premiere of the opera Beatriz in Brazil and the presentation of Não há machado que corte in Paris.

Combining artistic practice with theoretical rigor, he holds a PhD in Composition from the Royal College of Music in London, where he also taught as an Assistant Professor. He is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Sociology and Musical Aesthetics (CESEM) and was composer-in-residence with the Orquestra Clássica do Sul.