06/16/2024 – 12:15
This year, the Claudio Santoro National Theater Symphony Orchestra (OSTNCS), in Brasília, celebrates 45 years. To celebrate the date, Caminhos da Reportagem interviewed musicians who were and are part of this history.
OSTNCS held an inaugural concert on March 6, 1979, under the batons of maestro Claudio Santoro, one of the greatest classical composers in Brazil and with great international recognition. In 1978, Santoro had been invited to found the Music Department at the University of Brasília and the National Theater orchestra. To take on the mission in Brasília, Santoro left exile in Germany, where he went during the dictatorship.
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Gisele Santoro, the maestro’s widow, says that it was Santoro’s idealism that brought them back to Brazil. He had the dream of bringing excellent initiatives here, like he had known abroad. “We lived very well, he earned very well, he was highly respected. He had an international career in Europe and I also had a dance career, dance school, I did shows… He left all that behind, because he saw the possibility of a new university in Brasília, of really implementing something of a high level” , recalls Gisele.
First years
Beth Ernest Dias, a retired flutist from the orchestra, says that, in the early years, there was a desire among the musicians to meet the musical demands that maestro Santoro had. “He made us play all of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies, all of Mozart’s symphonies, all of Beethoven’s. It is the base repertoire that allows an orchestra to build its own sound. And the sound of an orchestra is something untouchable, but very valuable,” she says.
Clinaura Macêdo, retired OSTNCS violinist, highlights the prestige that Santoro had and how he was able to bring big names to play with the orchestra, in Brasília. “During this period, still in 1979, when the orchestra was being born, Jacques Klein came to play with us. He was one of the most important pianists in Brazil, internationally recognized. In 1980, Nelson Freire arrived, one of the five most important pianists in the world. Jean-Pierre Rampal, the greatest flutist in the world, French, also came. In addition to three top composers in Brazil: Camargo Guarnieri, Guerra Peixe and Francisco Mignone”.
Santoro remained in the National Theater orchestra, with a brief period of interruption, until 1989, when he died on stage, in front of the musicians, during a rehearsal. With the death of the maestro, the theater was renamed, receiving the name Teatro Nacional Claudio Santoro. So, the one who took over the batons was Silvio Barbato, a young 29-year-old maestro who was Santoro’s right-hand man.
Barbato had two stints as conductor of the OSTNCS, from 1989 to 1992 and from 1999 to 2006. Tragically, in 2009, Barbato disappeared, at the age of 50, on Air France flight 447 that was flying over the Atlantic Ocean.
Memory
Mirian Gomes, who worked as the orchestra’s administrative coordinator in the late 1980s and early 90s, gets emotional remembering her time with the two maestros. “Working with maestro Santoro was wonderful. I had this experience of working with someone at his level, as if I were working with some other composer, Beethoven… I don’t know. And Silvio Barbato, I mean, he was old enough to be my son, he was a sweet person. This is the memory I have of these years together, which were the best years of my life.”
Mirian’s husband, Ronaldo Gomes, had a camcorder at the time and started recording the orchestra’s concerts. Over the course of 7 years, he recorded around 120 performances. “It’s a historical record. Because if I hadn’t done it… If these recordings hadn’t happened, what would we have today? And now the idea came up of us donating these tapes to the orchestra as an archive for them. It’s a memory”, says Ronaldo.
Cláudio Cohen, conductor of the orchestra since 2011, says that the OSTNCS musical archive was recently revitalized. “We carried out a huge mobilization and hired a specialized team, who did all the cataloging of our material. We transported our musical archive to the National Library, to have a more preserved space, a noble space in the city, where people can have access to history and can have contact with this material”, explains Cohen.
Theater Closed
Between nostalgia and good memories, one subject is unanimous: the disagreement with the Claudio Santoro National Theater being closed for more than ten years. The DF Secretary of Culture, Cláudio Abrantes, explains that the place was closed by the Public Ministry and the Fire Department in 2013. “At that time, we had a sad event in the country which was the Kiss nightclub, which had a direct impact on all public equipment in the country, with care, above all, regarding materials. It was understood that the theater, given what had happened and as a precaution, posed risks to users.”
Maestro Cohen states that he fights not only for the revitalization of the National Theater but also for the construction of other theaters in the capital. “The Claudio Santoro National Theater is under renovation and we hope to return there soon, as it is scheduled to be delivered in the coming months. I was recently on a tour in China, there were 10 cities and 12 wonderful theaters, each one more beautiful than the other, which really shows the economic strength that this country has been enjoying and it is reflected in the investment in the cultural area for its own population. So Brasília cannot be left behind and the closure of the National Theater these years was a loss.”
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