Gilberto Gil brings opera to Lisbon: “Something that arouses enthusiasm”

“ I hope they find something there that awakens their enthusiasm, taste, appreciation of music and poetry, dramaturgy, everything that characterizes an opera”, told Lusa the Brazilian musician about “Amor Azul”, created in partnership with conductor and composer Aldo Brizzi.

“It’s a mixed work, from amalgam,” explained Gilberto Gil, who joined Brazil’s popular music “waste, echoes of Indian music, echoes of concert music, classical music” to create the opera with 66-year-old Italian composer and conductor Aldo Brizzi, who has dedicated his work to the conjunction between contemporary music, classical traditions and popular cultures.

Based on the Indian poem of Jayadeva Goswami’s 12th-century work “Gita Govinda”, “Blue Love” tells the love story between god Krishna and mortal Rada, in an opera in two acts with new songs.

The 84-year-old Brazilian singer and composer detailed that the libretto resulted from a translation of the poem by André Vallias and Aldo Brizzi, whose experience in concert music joined his “popular mode” of thinking about music.

“ I was invited by him to participate with him in this work ", told Lusa, referring to the Italian composer.

In Lisbon, Gilberto Gil will be accompanied by the Bahia Opera Center (orchestra of his birth state in Northeast Brazil), Lisbon International Symphony Orchestra and Coro Phydellius, under the direction of Aldo Brizzi.

In relation to his relationship with Portugal and the Portuguese public, Gilberto Gil answered without hesitation that the relationship between the artist and Portugal has been a very intensive, very profound relationship throughout history.

“For various reasons, one of them is the main, not only the language, but also the whole history of discovery, colonization, the Portuguese presence in Brazil, through Portuguese culture, through the Portuguese ways of interpreting human nature and broad nature, all this creates, historically, created a very great proximity between Brazil and Portugal“, he justified.

For this reason, he said, “when it comes to music, this proximity is very clear”

As for the show, the Bahian artist was taxing: “I hope you enjoy it.”

“ I hope they find something there that awakens their enthusiasm, taste, appreciation of music and poetry, dramaturgy, everything that characterizes an opera“, he concluded.

“Amor Azul” was premiered in concert in December 2022, at Maison de la Radio et de la Musique, Paris, with the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, in a show broadcast by RTP2 in October last year, available on the RTP Play platform.

Before the show at the Colosseum of Recreios, Gilberto Gil performed on July 8 at the CoolJazz festival in Cascais, in a concert announced for the Hippodrome Manuel Pomolo, and later this year he was at the Colosseum of Porto, in the context of a mini-digression for Europe, accompanied by children Bem and José and grandchildren João and Flor.

Born in June 1942 in Salvador da Bahia, he began his musical career in the 1950s playing accordion.

Central figure of Tropicalism, Gilberto Gil was also Brazilian Minister of Culture between 2003 and 2008, during the first administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and has been a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2021.

In 2023, he received the title of doctor ‘honoris causa’ from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.