Filmmaker and actor Carlos Aviles, 88, died at a Cascais hospital early Wednesday morning from a heart condition, where he was admitted on Tuesday after feeling unwell, he confirmed. Professional Theater School of Cascais.
Carlos Aviles founded the Teatro Experimental Theater of Cascais in 1965 and left a career in theater history that spanned more than 60 years of achievement and a “provocative and transgressive” path that was unintentionally blazed.
The name of Carlos Aviles has entered the history of Portuguese theater: over the past decades he worked in several theaters as an actor, director or founder, remaining professionally active until the end of his life.
Carlos Vitor Machado, or Carlos Aviles as he is better known, was born in 1935. His professional debut as an actor took place in 1956 in Companhia Amélia Rey Colaço – Robles Monteiro, where he remained until 1963.
During these seven years, he accumulated his acting skills, wrote plays and directed theatrical performances at the Sociedade de Instrução Guilherme Cossoul and Centro Espanhol, and eventually focused his professional life on production, following the advice of Amelia Rey Colazo, who had this vision even before him himself. realized that his future involved leaving his acting career behind.
It was in this state of mind that in 1963 he presented his first production, a bold version of António Ferreira’s tragedy Castro in Cossoul, which caused a stir in the creative circles of Lisbon and earned him the status of “enfant terrible”. Portuguese theatre. .
In a life-changing interview given in April of this year to Visão magazine, Carlos Aviles stated: “I never tried to be provocative and transgressive, but I did.”
In 1964, he made his debut as a director with the production of Carta Perdida at the Teatro Experimental Theater of Porto and in the same year he became director of CITAC – Círculo de Iniciação Teatral da Academia de Coimbra, where he directed As Bodas de Coimbra. Sangue” by Federico García Lorca, music by Carlos Paredes.
The following year, Carlos Avilés became one of the founders of the Teatro Experimental Theater of Cascais (TEC), which, after the collapse of some so-called rehearsal theater troupes, gave the theater a new dimension.
This innovation attracted some of the biggest names in Portuguese culture at the time and an audience that appreciated the innovative things the company was doing.
Among the plays he staged at TIC are Don Quixote, Phaedra, Galileo, Galileo, King Lear, Sweet Bird of Youth, Ines of Portugal, Much Ado About Nothing, Peer ” Gynt”, “Macbeth”, “The Tempest”, “The Brothers Karamazov” and many others.
With this company, Carlos Aviles presented some of his shows in Spain, France, Italy, Hungary, Brazil, the United States of America, Japan, Angola and Mozambique.
In a 2021 interview with the Cascais City Council publication, Carlos Aviles justified his longevity at TEC and his ability to be an “experimentalist” for over half a century by the “rebellion and courage” that comes from maintaining a frenzy over the years. .
“Age passes, experience and knowledge remain, memories and strength remain,” Carlos Aviles said then, for whom the theater was a “mirror” of the country, and the stage was a “terrible X-ray.”
In parallel with his work at TEC, he directed Raul Solnado at the Villarette Theater, worked in France with Peter Brook and in Poland with Jerzi Grotowski.
In 1970 he was appointed artistic director and responsible for Portugal Day at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, and nine years later he was appointed together with Amelia Rey Colazo, director of the Companhia Nacional de Teatro I – Teatro Popular, then based at the Teatro San Luis.
He also made a foray into the lyric theater, producing several operas, including Carmen, The Tales of Hoffmann, Quiu, Like a Species of Proteus, Ida and Volta, O Capote, Ines de Castro , “The Barber of Seville” and “Madama Butterfly”.
In 1993 he founded the Escola Profissional de Teatro de Cascais. The idea came about at the suggestion of former Education Minister Roberto Carneiro after a talk at TEC that he attended with his children.
From then until 2000, Carlos Avilés also worked at the national theaters D. Maria II and S. João as director and at the Institute of Performing Arts as president.
Most recently he staged Inés de Castro for Coimbra, National Capital of Culture 2002.
Decorated in 1995 with the Order of the Infante D. Enrique, Carlos Avilés was also awarded the Medals of Honor and Municipal Merit of the Municipal Council of Cascais, For Merit in the Field of Culture from the Secretary of State for Culture, Medals of 25 April. Associations and Medals for Cultural Merit of Vila de Óbidos.
During his career he received several awards: from the very beginning the António Pinheiro Award from the former State Secretariat for Information and Tourism and the Press Award from the Casa da Imprensa for the production of “D. Quixote.”
Since then, he has received many other awards, such as awards from critics and various media, including several Se7e de Ouro, Nova Gente and Globos de Ouro.
He was also awarded the 2015 Critics’ Award “Special Distinction of the Experimental Theater of Cascais” and the “Career and Work” Award from the Portuguese Society of Authors.
Always provocative and transgressive, Carlos Aviles constantly fought for the survival of the theater and bemoaned the growing loneliness of people, exacerbated by a pandemic that has removed the public from concert halls.
In a 2021 interview on the Cultura Cascais website, Carlos Aviles emphasized the need for companies that are struggling to survive to increasingly unite and show society and government authorities that they are important and that they are alive, every day, not just World Day theater
“We are not decorative objects. We are people who depend on this profession, a difficult profession that takes away people’s souls. Don’t let us disappear, because we won’t let the Theater disappear either. This is out of the question,” he said.
Carlos Aviles disappeared this Wednesday, but he left his mark on the history of the theater alive and well.
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Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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