In a short documentary, which belongs to the DVD with the recording of your previous opera “O Rapaz de Bronze” (“The Bronze Boy”), you talk about the necessity of renewing contemporary opera. Let me make one more reference to the words of Igor Stravinsky, who said: "Opera does not attract me at all … Opera is falsehood pretending to be truth, while I need falsehood that pretends to be falsehood. Opera is a competition with nature.” What is opera for you and how do you see its reinvention as a genre, which synthesizes not only various aesthetic approaches, but also joins music with theatre and visual arts?
In opposition to Stravinsky I am fatally attracted to opera and regard it as the world’s major spectacle. Too bad it is so expensive, isn’t it? In the end it complicates the production. Of course there are other things much more expensive, as the cinema, for example. But it continues. These are the financial questions, which I am not able to approach. Nevertheless I think that opera is indeed the world’s greatest spectacle. Regarding to its falsehood, I do not really see it this way. For me art should always say the Truth (with capital “t”) in a false manner. This is actually quite like Fernando Pessoa wrote: The poet is a pretender. He fakes so completely. What is false appears as pain. The pain that he really feels.” This is what I mean.
Perhaps art only chooses various things from reality in order to show them in a different way. Isn’t it like that?
These are quite personal matters. To my mind art should not represent reality. Stravinsky was quite ironic and what he said is somewhat distorted. Art should not reveal reality. Suffice it to see what happens everyday. There is nothing more real than to see the poor here in Chiado, without legs. So I think that it is not this reality that art should show. For me it should represent, faking, the things sublimed. If not, it is not worth for me and I do not have any interest in it. I treat art as a kind of redemption. I need the art and I think that people also do, which gives us recovery and hope.
Perhaps let’s us escape from reality? Or it is not an escape?
I do not see it as an escape. It is a support, a force, which we suddenly feel and it let’s us move on. I think that this is why people started creating paintings on cave walls. It was not only about decorating the cave. One does not really know why, because those “artists” passed away, but there was certainly more to it – not only decoration, but also a mystery or even transcendence. I see it in this manner.
Falsehood is necessary. This entire opera is false, jus as all operas are. I see the artistic content as being between the lines and not direct. I think that all big art is between the lines. For example the value of a book, a thing apparently false, is between the lines. Articles in newspapers do not have anything hidden between the lines. There are modern authors, writers who rely greatly on the concrete and one reads phrases, which are in fact intense and great, but I feel that they lack things. They do not have this “between the lines” approach, which makes it all more profound.
And how could you explain the reinvention of contemporary opera? It is one of the questions, which you raised in the documentary...
I said that I would like to participate in this process. How many decades more will we continue to listen to “Rigoletto” or “Tristan and Isolde”? At present everything is fine, a large-scale world production exists, with five hundred Rigolettos per year. I mentioned Rigoletto, but I could be talking about any other opera, this is just an example. How many decades more will we continue to listen to these works? Will the opera houses of 2100 still stage one more “Rigoletto” production? I doubt it. Therefore what I mean by renovation is that there should be contemporary opera production. And it does not necessarily have to shock, but in needs to exist, to live…
…and attract audiences.
People need to show their interest. It does not suffice to have one production and after that nobody cares. One needs to have a communication with the audience, so in this sense I only see the continuation of opera if this communication exists. I find it really difficult to continue having “Rigoletto” or “Madame Butterfly” in 100, 150 or 200 years, if we are still here. The same thing refers to classical music, music of the past.
Yes, although I think that when it comes to music of the past the research on performance is today so profound that one comes up with new ways of interpretation all the time…
Without any doubt, but still, I continue to think that art exists and has always existed, it is natural, like the paintings in caves or like going to the toilet. Art will never cease to exist. Yet certain forms can disappear...
..or change and evolve...
...or simply die. At this moment popular music (pop, rock) has a tremendous force. I am not criticising, but I would not want to take this path. By “tremendous force” I mean that the release of a new fado CD is probably more important than my opera, “Banksters”. I am not sure if yes or no. A musical form could not be eternal. So opera can finish? Yes. Perhaps. Maybe it will. Why not? I think that one needs its renaissance in this sense. It is communication with the present with the day-to-day. Opera cannot be a museum otherwise it will die. I am quite sure that if it continues like that, with theatres for elites…
…but it has always been like that…
I don’t think so. But perhaps I am wrong. To give you an example – in the 19th century Italian opera was a part of the folk, of politics.
On the other hand, Wagner in order to create a complete work of art chose opera and turned it into a more elitist genre…
Yes, of course. I am not saying that no, but I consider that opera was not always the “high society” art. Perhaps it became with more or less transcendent ideas. It had a great force. However today, can I call “West Side Story” an opera? I certainly see the power that it has, and yet there are people who claim: “This is not an opera, but a musical”. Nevertheless it has this force, like Pessoa said: “to exist is to be visible”. When art is secondary, that is, not visible, then I am not quite sure whether it exists. On the other hand there is the question of historical confirmation – “in that time it was not, but then it became”. It is also possible. To renovate is to create relevant and valuable things so that a person goes out from the concert hall with a good or bad impression, but not neutral – “whew, finally it ended”. Or things like that.
To finish in a lighter manner my last question concerns satire and humour. Since your new work is satirical could you explain how these things are important to you?
They are very important. I think that irony and satire can have a great impact, when people manage to see them. Tragedy for me is easier, and probably for other people too. It is clear and potent already in itself. On the contrary, a comedy is much more difficult, but at the same time it has much more impact. It is also much more risky because when it does not function it turns out to be ridiculous. A not well functioning tragedy can be just neutral. When one desires to be satirical and there is no humour, for me, it is ridiculous. That is how I see some programmes on television, which intend to be comic. It is horrible and not funny at all. Therefore I think that comedy is difficult, but when it works it has the strongest impact and helps in communicating with the audience. It is really significant for me to have this gesture in my music, this intention to be ironic and transmit things between the notes. In the past I was working a little bit on this. One year ago I presented here my Intermezzo “O Velório de Cláudio”, which was an attempt to be ironic. I think this if fundamental.