Festival takes “Opera à Moda do Porto” to Bolhão (and not only)

O FIATO – International Festival of Arts and Opera of Porto returns from 13 to 21 November, with 17 shows, such as “Opera à Moda do Porto”, taking place by surprise in the Bolhão Market, on the metro, in buses and shopping.

One of the stories created for the format “Opera à Moda do Porto”, in premiere, will talk about a guava seller. The guava will try to convince tourists who pass the Bolhão Market that the guava is a typical fruit of Porto, and not of Brazil, where it comes from.

Through the interpreters – the goiabeiro, the fruit seller of Bolhão and the ‘grandfather’, a tourist from Granada (Spain) – the ‘Opera à Moda do Porto’ is a small show that appears, without warning, in markets, metro stations, shopping centers and even in a bus from STCP – Sociedade de Transportes Coletivos do Porto, “catching surprises who passes”, reads in the FIATO press dossier delivered today to journalists.

“The guava is a true tonic. (...) Return the voice you lost. Puerto Rico, all evils I will cure. If you want to sing listen to what I say, the guava will have to buy, yes, you will have to buy ", sang the guava, during the presentation press conference of FIATO 2026, which took place today at Clube dos Fenianos, in Porto.

During the press conference, FIATO’s artistic director Teresa Nunes announced that the “thematic hat” of this edition is “All voices can change the world”. And on November 18th a tent will be set up in the subway station of Campo August 24th, in an allusion to the campings in Praça D. João I, in Porto, against the high prices of housing in Portugal.

The festival opens on November 13th with the show “Delicia de Strawberries com whipped cream”, by Quartet Contratempus & the Portuguese Symphony Band, in the Municipal Auditorium of Vila Nova de Gaia, and tells Bunny’s story, “type” main character, in love with Benny, “type the secondary character”, making humor with the word “type” used as a cane in language.

The “Opera do elevador”, on a meeting of four Portuguese and Brazilian people forced to talk, in an elevator that breaks, “Amor de Perdição”, who will try to discover who decrees love, the “Operometer”, measuring how much each human being is worth in opera, a concert for babies of vocal exploration, and the “FIATO in Vinil”, listening session to rediscover the opera through the Fonoteca Municipal do Porto, are other highlights that lovers of lyric singing can find in the festival

Teresa Nunes also highlighted the concert at the “Fe-mi-ni-no”, an “artistic reflection” by Andrea Conangla “on the role of women in society, art and culture”. “It is a musical journey of more than two centuries”, in which “the classical conceptual music and pop culture intersect with activism, feminism, music, politics and media”, reads in the press dossier.

The festival ends with an opera about the voice of “Ti Chitas”, in the Palácio do Bolhão, on 21 November, pastor Catarina Sargenta (1913-2003), performer and singer born in Penha Garcia, in the municipality of Idanha-a-Nova, discovered by the collections of ethnomusicologist Michel Giacometti, and who recorded with the Banda do Casaco, Nuno Rodrigues and António Avelar Pinho. ‘Ti Chitas’ left a heritage of sabers and teachings transmitted successively by generations of women, recalls the organization of the festival.

This nine-day edition of the festival more than duplicates the first (four days) because of the box office success in 2024, the artistic director explained to Lusa.

Asked by the agency Lusa about FIATO whether or not it is committed to the demonstrations of thousands of people in the country, by the right to housing, Teresa Nunes said that, coming this festival of the Quartet Contemporarys, a structure that creates opera of social and cultural intervention, the organization “always part of the premise of what we want to say to the world”.

“ With a festival created by the Quartet Contratempos, it had to be that same line, obviously. Even because we believe that the opera, or any spectacle that is created has an impact on the world, whatever it is. And neither are we who have to define what the impact is.”.

“ We have to create things and each takes what is for himself, because art is not to be explained, art is to be lived. That is, each person will take something different. But yes, we want to move ", said the director, referring that the mounting of the tent in the metro station in Campo 24 August is a symbol of a voice of resistance.

FIATO will also provide singing lessons for everyone at symbolic prices of 10 euros, with several teachers, opening the possibility of “being able to develop their vocal capabilities”. A vocal health workshop is also planned.

The festival ends with a dinner with an open microphone, in a sort of lyric ‘karaoke’, with a real-time pianist, so that people can sing, “be shower singers or professional singers,” Teresa Nunes explained.

This year, “Opera à Moda do Porto”, which is free, will talk about the voice of Porto in six ‘sketches’ presented throughout the week of the festival in the Bolhão Market, in Via Catarina, in Porto Airport, in Ribeira do Porto, in Porto Train Station, in Campo Metro Station August 24 and in the STCP Bus.

Tickets to the shows “within the stage” vary between the eight and 16 euros, subject to discounts, while the “out-stage” shows are free.