The agreement is created during the reflection sessions prepared at the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo on the occasion of the launch of the OLA-Brazil 2021 Congress in the city of Manaus.

The plan includes a series of meetings with rotating headquarters during 2020 which will bring the sector together around various problems of this industry.

The Brazilian Academy of Music joins the process and will lead a study on the operatic sector of Brazil in conjunction with the other organizations and the advice of OLA.

Opera in Pauta, was the meeting that brought together the main agents of the opera industry in Brazil in São Paulo on November 24 and 25 at the Municipal Theater of this city. The meeting was attended by more than 100 people representing the 5 regions of Brazil. Among them theater leaders, independent companies, artists, composers, specialized critics, and journalists. The meeting was organized by Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, Festival Amazonas de Ópera, Theatro da Paz de Belém, Cia. Ópera São Paulo and Ópera Latinoamérica.

In April 2019, an agreement was signed between the Special Secretariat of Culture and Ópera Latinoamérica to start a collaborative work for the development of opera in Brazil in conjunction with the associated Brazilian theaters. As a result of this agreement, a special program started by Brazilian organizations belonging to OLA began to work in Brazil.

“The meeting in São Paulo was a historic and very enriching event for the sector. There was a transparent, honest and constructive dialogue. We have drawn a road map with a series of milestones in different parts of Brazil during the next year until we finish with the meeting in Manaus ”comments Luiz Coradazzi, Advisor of the Artistic Direction of Theatro Municipal de São Paulo.

As the first step of the Opera in Pauta 2019-2021 plan that the organizers have outlined, the development of a study of the opera sector in Brazil has been determined. “The meeting at Theatro Municipal de São Paulo that announced the first OLA meeting in Brazil in 2021 has been a historic moment for the integration of Brazilian opera houses and our country to the continent. The Brazilian Academy of Music, founded by Villa Lobos in 1945, joins this important project assuming the mission of acting as an observatory, collecting and disseminating data on the activity of opera houses in Brazil. ”, Comments João Guillermo Ripper, President of the Academy.

On the other hand, Alejandra Martí, Executive Director of OLA comments “This study continues with the work that OLA started in 2018 and 2019 when carrying out the first cadastre and survey of Latin American theaters. We put at the service of the Academy of Music and the Brazilian theaters the methodology and processes that we develop in order to continue and make a more focused and nurtured study in a single country. Only with accurate data can we move forward, diagnose the gaps and asymmetries of our sector, and thus contribute to the development of a professional industry for opera in Latin America. What will happen in Brazil is a pilot plan, it must be replicated in other countries of the Region. ”

MEETING MANAUS 2021

Regarding the OLA Congress in Manaus in May the Festival Director, Flavia Furtado comments “We need to unite as a sector of the creative economy, develop the opera market and professionalize in Brazil. We have 91 theaters with a pit, more than 50 Brazilian composers who produce more than 140 titles of operas, we have material and intangible heritage with opera. In Manaus we created the technical and artistic workshops over the years and that was fundamental for the stability of the Theater and the project, that’s why we have such significant data on economic and social indicators. Brazil has to understand its vocation and assume its role in the opera industry in Latin America.

“Beyond the artistic areas, the Festival is also capable of generating job opportunities for the population. In 2019, the Festival Amazonas de Ópera generated nearly 700 direct jobs, which is more than what each of the free zone sectors generate such as toys, textiles, wood and shoe stores. ”, Says Apolo Muniz, Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy of Amazonas.