Marcos Portugal
Encyclopedia
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
classical composer, who achieved great international fame for his opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
Portugal was born in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. He first studied music at the Patriarchal Seminary in Lisbon where, as a 14 year old student, he wrote his first work, a Miserere. He later worked as composer and organist at the Patriarchal See, and was maestro at the Theatre of Salitre in Lisbon. He lived in Italy from late 1792 to 1800, possibly funded by the Prince Regent
Prince Regent
A prince regent is a prince who rules a monarchy as regent instead of a monarch, e.g., due to the Sovereign's incapacity or absence ....
, D. João
John VI of Portugal
John VI John VI John VI (full name: João Maria José Francisco Xavier de Paula Luís António Domingos Rafael; (13 May 1767 – 10 March 1826) was King of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves (later changed to just King of Portugal and the Algarves, after Brazil was recognized...
. He wrote 21 operas for various Italian theatres, the first being I due gobbi, premièred in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in the spring of 1793. His version of The Marriage of Figaro premièred in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
in 1799.
Marcos Portugal returned to his home country in 1800. The huge success that his opere buffe had earned him assure him a still unsurpassed international fame in Portugal's music history. He became maestro at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
The Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is an opera house in Lisbon, Portugal. It was opened on July 30, 1793 by Queen Maria I as a replacement for the Tejo Opera House, which was destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake...
in Lisbon, and was appointed music master at the Patriarchal Seminary in Lisbon. He continued to write operas, mainly opere serie, and a large number of religious works, until moving to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
in 1811, from where the Prince Regent had called him. Upon arriving, Marcos Portugal was appointed music master to the sons and daughters of the Prince Regent, and became the official Royal Composer.
He wrote mainly religious music until at least 1824, date of his last known surviving autograph. In Portugal and Brazil, his reputation rests mainly on his religious music output, a genre cultivated throughout his composing life. He remained in Rio de Janeiro when the Portuguese Court returned to Portugal, in 1821, continuing to serve his pupil, the First Emperor of Brazil, D. Pedro, as he had previously served his father, king John VI of Portugal
John VI of Portugal
John VI John VI John VI (full name: João Maria José Francisco Xavier de Paula Luís António Domingos Rafael; (13 May 1767 – 10 March 1826) was King of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves (later changed to just King of Portugal and the Algarves, after Brazil was recognized...
. He died in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
in 1830.
In 2010, Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton Classical Opera
Bampton Classical Opera is an opera company based in Bampton, Oxfordshire specialising in the production of lesser known opera from the Classical period...
presented the UK première of Portugal's The Marriage of Figaro (1799). Marcos Portugal was born six years after Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, who had composed his version of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
thirteen years prior to Portugal's. Like most theatre composers of the time, Portugal set several librettos that had proven successful for earlier operas, such as Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
’s Demofoonte (premièred at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in 1794) and Artaserse
Artaserse
Artaserse is the name of a number of Italian operas, all based on a text by Metastasio. Artaserse is the Italian form of the name of a Persian king, Artaxerxes....
; and he set many stories that had been used before, including Serse, Alceste, Adrasto, Semiramide and Sofonisba
Sophonisba
Sophonisba was a Carthaginian noblewoman who lived during the Second Punic War, and the daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco Gisgonis...
. By reusing earlier librettos and stories, composers could expect their audience to follow the story more easily, which is probably why Portugal decided to do his own version of the famous play by Beaumarchais. His librettist was Gaetano Rossi
Gaetano Rossi
Gaetano Rossi was an Italian writer who wrote opera libretti for several composers including Mayr, Rossini, Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, and Meyerbeer.-Biography:...
.
External links
- Composer's biography, excerpts of Le Donne Cambiate and overture to Il Duca di Foix.
- List of works, bibliography.
- D. João VI and Marcos Portugal: The Brazilian Period, by António Jorge Marques
- MarcosPortugal.com — Composer's biography, external links to other websites related to Marcos Portugal, online sale of his work Missa Grande [Great Mass], for soloist voices, choir and organ/basso continuo.