The Casa de Mateus Foundation, in Vila Real, has planned around 100 events for 2024 that combine music, literature, dance, theater and debates, as well as residencies for artistic and contemporary creation, its managers announced today.
Teresa Albuquerque, director of cultural activities at the Casa de Mateus Foundation, said today at a press conference that a “vast program” has been prepared for 2024, which began on World Poetry Day, on March 21, and runs until the end of the year, with around a hundred events.
“Literature, visual arts, performing arts, theater, music. It’s a multidisciplinary program,” she said.
Mateus Palace, completed in 1744 and recognized as a national monument since 1910, is also Vila Real’s main tourist attraction.
“Casa de Mateus is a cultural center located in the northern region. It’s an affirmation that, from here, we can create and present reflection and art for all audiences,” said Teresa Albuquerque.
The palace is a museum, which includes a vast archive and library, surrounded by a 26-hectare park with gardens, a vineyard, a vegetable garden and a forest.
Among the programs already planned for 2024, Teresa Albuquerque highlighted the Casa de Mateus International Music Encounters (July and August), the presentation of Umbigo magazine and the inauguration of the exhibition by artist Anne Marie Maes, which is the result of an artist residency, the inauguration of Manuel Casimiro’s “Jardim Pintado” and a new work by Miguel Palma.
The program includes the cycle “Art in the Landscape”, the “School of Transcriptions”, the artist residencies “The Present of the Future”, “The Baroque Revisited”, debates and the “AGZ X” initiative, which marks the tenth anniversary of the death of the Uruguayan-born Portuguese writer, director and composer Alvaro García de Zúñiga.
Throughout the year there will be theater with the Teatro da Rainha company, dance with the Paulo Ribeiro Company, and music, from baroque to contemporary, will be expressed in various forms, from stimulating the creation of new works with the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble to a Händel opera accompanied by the Mateus Baroque Orchestra.
In November, the finalists in the international ‘Lied’ (chamber song) composition competition will be revealed.
The debates in 2024 will focus on corruption and its consequences, the democratic transition of the last 50 years in Portugal, and the “Rethink Portugal” and “Rethink Iberia” programs will be resumed.
Sundays open to the local community will return in November as part of the “We are here” initiative, which also includes themed visits, an environmental trail, the sharing of local memories and regular yoga classes in the landscape.
“We will try to maintain this program, the only thing that limits us is the need to maintain this heritage, which is a heavy burden, it’s a huge responsibility that, in fact, rests only on visitors entering this house,” explained Teresa Albuquerque.
Next Sunday, the chapel of the palace of Mateus will open its doors for the celebration of Our Lady of Pleasures, patron saint of the chapel and of the parish of Mateus, an initiative highlighted by a carpet of flowers almost a kilometer long.
Casa de Mateus’ cultural program is supported by the Directorate-General for the Arts (DGArtes).
Last year, Casa de Mateus received 111,131 visitors, a figure that was “below expectations”.
Tourists arrive from all over the world, from Asia to the Americas and Europe, most of them in organized groups.
“Before the pandemic, we exceeded 120,000 (…). We hope that this year will go better than last year and that it will allow us to continue with these community outreach programs,” stressed Teresa Albuquerque.
In 2024, he stressed, the recovery in tourism is still “a little timid”.
