The board of the Organismo de Produção Artística has decided to create a commission for the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, made up of the titular conductors and the director of Musical Studies, to take on the role of artistic director until a new head is chosen.
This “artistic commission”, coordinated by conductor and pianist João Paulo Santos, director of Musical Studies at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos (TNSC) in Lisbon, also includes the conductors of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pirolli, and of the São Carlos Choir, Giampaolo Vessella, according to a statement from the Artistic Production Organization (Opart), sent to the Lusa news agency today.
The decision by Opart – the body that manages the TNSC, the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, the National Ballet Company and the Vítor Cordon Studios – follows the departure of artistic director Ivan van Kalmthout, who stepped down on July 4, “by agreement” with the administration, a year after taking up the post.
“This solution, which has been accepted by the Minister of Culture,” reads the statement on the commission, “will be in force until the conclusion of the new international tender process to choose the artistic director” of São Carlos, “which should take place within a maximum period of 12 months, as provided for in the statutes” of Opart.
The opening of the international competition for a new artistic director is scheduled for October, a TNSC source told Lusa, confirming the deadline set by Público newspaper. The Dutchman Ivan van Kalmthout, who took up his post on July 1 last year, was the first to be chosen for the position by international public tender.
The program for the next TNSC season, “namely from September to December” this year, “will be announced shortly”, Opart said today. This schedule will already be in the hands of the artistic committee now formed, and the next season, for 2025, will be announced in the next four months.
This program will be toured around the country, in coordination with local partners, and with other stages in Lisbon, such as Teatro Camões, Centro Cultural de Belém and Teatro Tivoli, while the work on the TNSC building takes place, as part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), as announced last February when the work project was presented.
The theater will close at the end of this month, when the Festival ao Largo, which began on Thursday, ends, with the reopening scheduled for 2026.
Until then, the São Carlos team, totaling 250 people, will be housed in the Tribunal da Boa-Hora building, with collections temporarily deposited, depending on their nature, in the facilities of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, the National Museum of Music and the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
The TNSC’s conservation, restoration, rehabilitation and modernization project has an overall budget of 27.927 million euros, under the PRR.
