World City Guide

Culture

The cultural scene in Lisbon today is a vibrant collage of old and new, as the ghosts of Lisbon’s grand past echo evocatively around the city’s contemporary venues. Lisbon offers a formidable number of venues and companies can often be found performing in a wide variety of sites, such as outdoor parks and national palaces.

The fortnightly Follow me Lisboa publishes cultural listings. Event tickets are available for purchase from the Agência de Billetes para Espectáculos Públicos (ABEP); there is a kiosk in the southeast corner of Praça dos Restauradores. Ticket Line (tel: (21) 003 6300) also offers tickets to many popular shows.

Music: The Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa (Portuguese Symphony Orchestra) is now based at the Teatro Camões, located at the former Expo98 site, in the Parque das Nações (tel: (21) 347 4049). The Gulbenkian Orchestra and Gulbenkian Choir perform at one of the concert halls and the open-air amphitheatre of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Avenida de Berna 45A (tel: (21) 782 3000; website: www.gulbenkian.pt ), adjacent to the museum. The Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Rua Serpa Pinto 9 (tel: (21) 325 3000), is where opera productions are staged during the September to June season. Classical concerts are also held here. Other classical music ensembles include the Sinfonietta de Lisboa, based at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, and the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa. Another major venue for music is the Coliseu dos Recreios, Rua das Portas Santo Antão 92 (tel: (21) 343 1677).

Theatre: Among Lisbon’s attractive theatres, the Teatro Nacional de Dona Maria II, Praça de Dom Pedro IV, Rossio (tel: (21) 325 0800; website: www.teatro-dmaria.pt ), is the most striking. Theatre and opera productions are also hosted in the Pequeno and Grande Auditório (Small and Large Auditoria) of the Centro Cultural de Belém, Praça do Império (tel: (21) 361 2400; fax: (21) 361 2500; e-mail: ccb@ccb.pt; website: www.ccb.pt ). Most theatre performance in Lisbon is, naturally, in Portuguese, although there are also some English-language productions. The classics are still well liked, despite the fact that contemporary Portuguese and political work is becoming increasingly popular. The Artistas Unidos, Rua Fernando Palha (tel: (21) 868 8676; fax: (21) 868 8679; e-mail: info@aristasunidos.pt; website: www.artistasunidos.pt ) is an alternative company that specialises in political theatre.

Dance: The Portuguese National Ballet, Companhia Nacional de Bailado (website: www.cnb.pt ), is based at the Teatro Camões, located at the former Expo98 site, in the Parque das Nações (tel: (21) 347 4049). Other venues that host dance performances are the Centro Cultural de Belém, Praça do Império (tel: (21) 361 2400; fax: (21) 361 2500; e-mail: ccb@ccb.pt; website: www.ccb.pt ) and the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Avenida de Berna 45A (tel: (21) 782 3000; website: www.gulbenkian.pt ).

Film: Films are almost always shown in the original language, with subtitles in Portuguese. For English-language films, the best bets are the multiplexes in the larger shopping centres. The Diário de Notícias newspaper has film listings. Mainstream theatres include Amoreiras, Avenida Engengeiro Duarte Pacheco (tel: (21) 387 8752), and Colombo, Centro Colombo, Avenida Luisada (tel:(21) 711 3222). Arthouse film fans are also catered for at the Londres, Avenida de Roma 7A (tel: (21) 840 1313).

The world’s oldest taxi driver and his 1928 Oldsmobile are the stars of the film, Lisboa Taxi (1996), which premiered in January 1997.

Cultural Events: Since the 16th century, the Procissão do Senhor dos Passos, a procession of violet-covered litters has passed through the Graça district on the second Sunday of Lent, in honour of Senhor dos Passos (Lord of the Steps). The month of June sees some of Lisbon’s most popular festivals, the Festas dos Santos Populares, honouring a number of saints, with parades and parties. Similar processions take place on the saints’ days in many of the surrounding villages.

Literary Notes: Portugal’s most famous writer was Luís de Camões, whose 16th-century poem, Os Lusíadas (1572), captured the spirit of the Portuguese Empire. The other famous name is poet Fernando Pessoa, born in Lisbon in 1888. In addition to his poems, Pessoa was involved with Orpheu magazine (founded in 1914), which made a significant contribution to the cultural discourse of the time. José Saramago, the Portuguese native who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, is the author of the 1989 tome, História de cerco de Lisboa (The History of the Siege of Lisbon), a fanciful retelling of the 1147 siege of the city.

Lisbon also appears in other nation’s works of literature. The 1755 earthquake, for example, serves as an important symbol in Voltaire’s Candide (1759). Henry Fielding moved to Lisbon for health reasons and died here, after completing the Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon (1755). Other more recent works include Mario de Sa-Carneiro’s The Great Shadow (circa 1915), a collection of short stories set in Lisbon, and Cees Nooteboom’s The Following Story (1991), a surreal tale of a teacher who falls asleep in Amsterdam and awakes in Lisbon. Robert Wilson’s A Small Death in Lisbon (2000) is a colourful novel delving into intrigues of corruption and double-dealing, as it switches between World War II and the late 1990s.