Stage direction
Visual Imagery & Sketches
OPERA | L’Elisir d’Amore
Music > G. Donizetti | Libretto > F. Romani | Stage Director > Pedro Ribeiro | Set Designer > Ana Gormicho | Costume Designer > Ines Mariana Moitas | Lighting > Nuno Almeida | Cast > Nemorino > Andre Lacerda | Adina > Sara Braga Simoes | Belcore > Job Tome | Dulcamara > Andre Henriques | Giannetta > Paulina Machado | Chorus > “Mocos do Coro” Carolina Andrade, Daniela Matos, Teresa Queiros; Ana Alexandra Almeida, Ana Rita Coelho, Jacinta Albergaria; Alberto Vilas Boas, Gustavo Queiros; Miguel Vasconcelos, Simao Nobre; Joao Barros da Silva, Miguel Maduro-Dias| Piano > Goncalo Carvalho Vasquez | Violino > Marta Eufrazio |Violoncelo > Vasco Alves | Clarinet > Luis Santos | Production > All’Opera, Camara Municipal de Matosinhos, Teatro Municipal Constantino Nery| Pictures: © Susana Neves 2019 & CMMatosinhos
Director’s note
In this second production for All’Opera I looked for a cross between the characters of L’Elisir and the city of Matosinhos, Portugal. It was during a walk back home that I found some old black and white pictures displayed on the windows of the photography shop – “Foto Mar”. The soldiers with guitars singing alongside fishmongers in such tender combination of sea – nostalgia – innocence, was the light-bulb moment to rip-off the story from to Italians and turn it Portuguese. The right time to pile up these characters and make them live again had to be 1961. Portugal was deep in Salazar’s dictatorship, the homeland adulation; the overseas war in the colonies were an oncoming duty; television was finally being broadcast across the north of the country; In Matosinhos there was a demographic explosion, but above all, there was still an innocence in falling in love – be it in the need to love in a haste (because of the deaths that the war would bring) or the need to flee the dictatorial families. I didn’t live during that time, but I used the best library I have on the subject – my family.