Castafiore

Performance by Catarina Molder

15’

Production: Ópera do Castelo

Premiere: 11 December 2021, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Conception, co-creation, soprano: Catarina Molder

Direction, co-creation, light design: Tânia Carvalho

Prepared piano, co-creation: André Hencleeday

Musical advisory: Nuno da Rocha

Having as starting point, the only feminine character of Tintin’s cartoon-  Diva Bianca Castafiore, singing ad eternum the famous air des bijoux, from Gounod’s Faust, this performance evokes and deconstruct the image of the Diva and its own caricature – the Diva who has lost the notion of time and of the present world, refusing to descend her pedestal.

Ironically, in today's world, the opera diva fell down indeed and lost the aura which used to surround her, the opera singer paradigm absolutely shifted and the personae of the Diva suffered over the last decades a long deconstruction process. Who knows if it will be in vogue again. Looking for the Diva!