The existence of theatrical performances in Brazil dates back practically as far as the Portuguese presence in South America. From the theatre in the aldeias for the native BraziliansFootnote 1 and the Colleges of the Jesuit priests, to the performances in ephemeral theatres built in public squares for the celebration of the most important events in the civil and religious life of the kingdom and its rulers, theatrical activity has been considered essential to most celebrations in colonial Brazil. Parallel to the theatrical performances in public squares, from the eighteenth century onwards, and following upon a growing desire to reproduce in the colony the ‘civilising models’ of the metropole, another model of business was explored in the larger villages and cities: the construction of for-profit public opera houses with permanent activity.
Before addressing theatrical performances in colonial Brazil, it is crucial to consider the broader context of eighteenth-century society. Although Brazil shares Iberian and Catholic roots with the nations of Spanish America, their historical trajectories diverged in nearly every key aspect – language, culture, colonial administration, political structures, geography and lived experience.Footnote 2 These differences had a direct impact on theatrical practices. Notably, Brazil developed a structured operatic culture much earlier than its Spanish-American counterparts. A permanent public opera house was already functioning in Brazil by 1746,Footnote 3 whereas in most Spanish-American countries – particularly in South America – opera only gained prominence in the early nineteenth century, when touring European companies began to arrive.Footnote 4 This timeline is still often overlooked, even in scholarly discourse, reflecting a tendency to generalise about Latin American cultural history by means of a predominantly Spanish-speaking lens.
It is also important to note that the term opera in eighteenth-century Brazil did not necessarily refer to a dramatic work set to music composed entirely by a single composer. Pasticcio was frequently practised in eighteenth-century Brazilian theatres, and musical numbers were intercalated with spoken dialogues. But they were called operas, and their almost entirely Brazilian-born artists were called ‘operarios’. The first reference to the existence of a permanent public theatre in Brazil dates from 1719, when a puppet theatre opened its doors in Rio de Janeiro.Footnote 5 The earliest recorded mention of the word ‘opera’ dates back to 1746, by which time an opera house was already operating in Vila Rica, the capital of the captaincy of Minas Gerais.Footnote 6 Interestingly, this city is home to Brazil’s oldest surviving opera house, as illustrated in Figure 1. While the puppet theatre engaged a few actors who could perform several roles and never appeared on stage, the opera houses hired actors who were fully seen and heard by the audience members. In what follows, I will explore how these early theatrical forms reveal the unique cultural dynamics of colonial Brazil and its distinct operatic tradition. This article examines the social, political and artistic factors that shaped the early development of opera in Brazil, paying special attention to the significant presence of Black and biracial artists within these public opera houses from the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing on accounts from foreign travellers, as well as other types of primary source, I will examine the professional conditions, social backgrounds and racial dynamics of these performers, highlighting how the institution of slavery and racial prejudice influenced their lives and careers. This study sheds light on an important yet often overlooked chapter of Brazilian cultural history.
Opera House of Vila Rica. Built in 1770 and restored in 1861.
The first professional actors
From the first theatrical performances in ephemeral theatres in Brazil, the search for local actors who could reproduce the ‘civilising European model’ became essential. But where would these actors and actresses come from, in a colony with continental dimensions that did not have experienced theatrical companies capable of reciting European dramatic works and of serving as a model for the future generations of actors? References to people who were ‘curious about the art of performance’ and individuals ‘without experience but with natural talent for the stage’Footnote 7 are very common in letters and reports concerning the first Brazilian actors. It is quite possible that men and women who worked as actors and actresses were also instructed in the art of music, since musical training was more systemised and available in every important city in Portuguese America.Footnote 8 Regarding the ethnicity and social condition of these performers, it is natural to suppose that they had the same origin as most of the musicians active in colonial Brazil until the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808: they were biracial and free.
Enslaved Black men and women were also employed in the performing arts. There are plenty of references to Black musicians who were active in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Brazil. In Figure 2 – considered the first depiction of a theatrical production in Brazil – we see Black individuals dancing and playing musical instruments in the background. The scene represents a performance of the Spanish play La Monja Alférez, staged during the celebrations of Saint Gonzalo in Rio Vermelho, Bahia. This event was described by the French traveller Le Gentil de la Barbinais in 1717. Maybe the most emblematic is the report about the musicians of the Fazenda da Santa Cruz, close to Rio de Janeiro. Venetian Adriano Balbi provided the following description of the musical activity that took place during the first decades of the nineteenth-century. Although Balbi had never been to Brazil, he included the following report in his book Essai statistique sur le Royaume du Portugal et d’Algarve:
We believe we will not have accomplished our goal if we do not mention a sort of musical conservatory established a long time ago in the surroundings of Rio de Janeiro, and that is totally devoted to educating Black people in music. This institution exists thanks to the Jesuit priests, as are all the other colleges established in Brazil before the arrival of the king which devoted themselves to civilising and instructing the people […] When the king arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Santa Cruz was converted into a royal residence. His Majesty and the entire court were very surprised the first time they heard the holy mass in the church of Santo Inácio de Loyola in Santa Cruz, and that was because of the perfection with which vocal and instrumental music was performed by blacks of both sexes, who were trained in this art through the method introduced several years ago by the previous owners of the place and which, fortunately, was preserved … Some managed to play the instruments and sing in a truly surprising way. I feel very sorry not to be able to mention the names of the first violin, first bassoon and first clarinet …, as well as the two black ladies who were distinguished from their colleagues by the beauty of their voices and the art and feeling they employed in their singing. Both brothers Marcos … have composed operas that were fully performed by these Africans and were applauded by all the listeners who already knew them.Footnote 9
Theatrical performance on a temporary stage near Salvador, described by La Barbinais.
As this passage suggests, the Jesuits were instrumental in shaping music education in colonial Brazil. The Fazenda de Santa Cruz – donated to the Society of Jesus by its original owners at the end of the sixteenth century – emerged as the largest agricultural estate in eighteenth-century Brazil, relying on the labour of thousands of enslaved individuals. Among the significant cultural undertakings of the Jesuit leadership was the creation of a music school, an orchestra, and a choir composed of enslaved musicians. These ensembles regularly performed at Masses and festive occasions. Notably, this tradition of musical practice persisted even after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Portuguese dominions in 1759. The cited reference to ‘the brothers Marcos’ alludes to the composers Marcos Portugal and Simão Portugal. Marcos Portugal was the most prominent Portuguese opera composer during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His career, which spanned both Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, positioned him at the centre of Luso-Brazilian musical life, with his works enjoying broad circulation across the Atlantic world.
Santa Cruz was not unique in maintaining an orchestra composed entirely of enslaved Black individuals. In Arraial do Tijuco, Minas Gerais, a region marked by intense diamond mining and a wide range of skilled labour performed by enslaved Africans, musical practice similarly flourished. The well-known figure Chica da Silva is documented to have owned enslaved musicians. Contemporary accounts suggest that these musicians formed part of a theatrical troupe that performed operatic works in what was known as the ‘pocket theatre of Chica da Silva’, located on her rural estate, the Chácara da Palha, around 1766.Footnote 10
Concerning the enslaved musicians of João Fernandes de Oliveira and his partner Chica da Silva, Antônio da Mota Magalhães, registrar of the Royal Treasure in Vila Rica, left a very important letter in which he reports having watched a concert of vocal and instrumental music in the house of Fernandes de Oliveira in Tijuco. After returning to Vila Rica, he tried to imitate the musical ensemble with some of his Black slaves, but apparently it was not as good as that of his friend. A few months later, he wrote to João Fernandes, saying that ‘At night, I command the seven enslaved men to play; they suffer as they perform: two French horns, two flutes, two violins and a double bass.’ In the same letter, he asks Fernandes de Oliveira to send some music scores from Tijuco to Vila Rica so his orchestra could play them, complaining that he had not managed to form a group of singers since only one slave wanted to take part, but negros de nação (referring to Black men from Africa) ‘can never give the pleasure some crioulos and biracial men can’.Footnote 11
Another reference to the existence of orchestras composed of enslaved people comes from a north American missionary who visited Minas Gerais in the nineteenth century. In the Fazenda da Soledade, which then belonged to a baron from the Brazilian empire, he had the chance to listen to a great orchestra totally composed of Black men, accompanied by one organist and a children’s choir. They performed the overture from an opera and a Stabat Mater.Footnote 12
We are fortunate to have a few of the extremely rare visual records of eighteenth-century Brazil created by the Italian military engineer Carlos Julião. Among these, Figure 3 stands out, portraying Black women engaged in playing musical instruments. Julião’s works provide some of the very few surviving images of Black musicians from Minas Gerais during this period.
Carlos Julião (1740–1811). Cortejo da Rainha Negra (Procession of the Black Queen). Lithograph.
From the sixteenth century until the nineteenth, no other destination received more enslaved African men and women than Brazil. In 1789, Rio de Janeiro had a population of approximately 65,000 enslaved individuals, but this number would reach 150,000 thirty years later.Footnote 13 As Stuart Schwartz has asserted, slavery moulded the contours of Brazilian life in innumerable ways.Footnote 14 In a society based firmly on the slavery system, it is natural to suppose that the prestigious workplaces were occupied by the small white elite, preferably Portuguese, resident in the colony.Footnote 15 Activities that were not directly related to the dynamics of the economy, such as service provision, crafts, commerce and the performing arts, were left to the free Blacks and biracial men and women. In 1780, Portuguese José João Teixeira Coelho, author of the Instruções para o Governo da Capitania de Minas Gerais,Footnote 16 wrote:
This presumption and otiosity of white people have been transferred to the half caste and Blacks because, once they are freed, they do not want to work or to serve, and since necessity forces them to search for their subsistence in illegal manners, they throw themselves, men and women, to their corresponding addictions. Those half caste who are not absolutely idle are employed as musicians, and there are so many in the captaincy of Minas that they certainly exceed the number of all musicians in the kingdom. But what is the State’s interest in this alluvium of musicians?Footnote 17
In this passage, Teixeira Coelho offers a compelling explanation for the remarkable number of musicians emerging from Minas Gerais. As a major mining centre, the captaincy concentrated almost half of the slaves brought from Africa to Brazil and, consequently, their descendants. Although legally free, these individuals continued to face the pervasive racial prejudice characteristic of colonial society. In response, many turned to the arts and crafts as a means of social and economic advancement, with music becoming a particularly prominent avenue for expression and opportunity, constituting what Francisco Curt Lange has called ‘musical mulatismo’.Footnote 18 We also cannot ignore the fact that the deep conservatism of eighteenth-century Luso-Brazilian society and the bad reputation related to those who made their livings on public stages, women above all, pushed men and women with better social and financial conditions away from public theatres.
Even though the engagement of Black and biracial artists was a common practice in Brazil throughout the eighteenth century, and the number of Black individuals in the streets of Lisbon drew the notice of foreign visitors, it is still not clear if Black artists were employed in Portuguese and Spanish stages.Footnote 19 More generally, documents relating to performers employed in Brazilian opera houses are of a different nature and generally scattered: they include court lawsuits and other legal documentation, engagement contracts and foreign travellers’ journals. Additionally, there is no comprehensive documentation available regarding all the permanent theatres that were active in Brazil; however, there are a few sources concerning theatres in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul.
Regarding travellers’ reports, it is important to note that most foreign visitors to Brazil were military personnel, diplomats, businessmen, technicians, liberal professionals, and naturalists, among others (rarely were they performers themselves). According to Rui Vieira Nery, this suggests that most of them had a basic knowledge of music and opera, typical of the ‘good society’ of the time. However, despite their evident misunderstanding of the society and artistic practices they observed, their accounts could still be somewhat faithful to the events they witnessed – or that others witnessed, and they reproduced – often without having ever set foot in Brazil. Even so, their preconceptions regarding the ethnic background of Brazilian artists and differing religious or moral behaviours are frequently present in their reports.Footnote 20
The earliest report relating to professional actors employed in a permanent company mentions Manoel da Silveira Ávila, Plácido de Castro and Antônio Pereira as the men responsible for administrating a theatrical nativity scene on the Christmas evening of 1719 onwards in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The society contract mentions that Manoel da Silveira Ávila was responsible for painting, probably the sets and maybe some decorations of the theatre; Plácido Coelho de Castro was in charge of the scene, which meant he had to make the puppets and either manipulate them himself or hire someone to do so; and Antônio Pereira would oversee the music ‘for four voices and instruments’.Footnote 21 We are not certain how long the company functioned, but we do know that, in 1748, there was a puppet theatre active in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which was described by a crew member of the French boat L’Arc en Ciel. The Frenchman says that he watched a performance with puppets of natural size, good and richly decorated, and with mechanisms that were good enough not to be noticed by the audience.Footnote 22 Around the 1750s, additional opera houses began to be established in Rio de Janeiro, such as the one described by Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his Voyage autour du monde:
The viceroy arranged a box for us at the Opera. In a rather beautiful hall, we were able to see Metastasio’s masterpieces performed by a troupe of mulattos and hear those divine pieces by the great Italian masters, executed by a poor orchestra conducted at the time by a hunchbacked priest in ecclesiastical attire.Footnote 23
Bougainville’s report offers a vivid glimpse into the cultural and social contradictions of colonial Brazilian opera. On one hand, it highlights the reach and prestige of European art forms like Metastasio’s libretti and Italian music, even in the colonial territories. On the other, it reveals how these forms were localised and reinterpreted through the realities of the Luso-Brazilian world.
Another actor who is mentioned in the primary sources for having achieved particular recognition is Pedro Fernandes de Lima. He acted in the region of Rio das Mortes, Minas Gerais, and he is the only artist mentioned in the documentation regarding the celebrations in Vila Rica for the acclamation of José I as King of Portugal in 1751. For the occasion, theatrical performances took place in the opera house, despite being part of the official celebrations of the city hall, which usually took place in a public square. The document mentioning the engagement shows that the person responsible for the performances was Francisco Mexias, who, for the occasion, staged the plays O labirinto de Creta, by the Luso-Brazilian author António José da Silva, and Os encantos de Merlim and O velho Sergio, by unknown authors, but often performed in the mid-eighteenth century in Brazil.Footnote 24 Mexias committed himself to hiring the ‘best available figures’ of the captaincy, including Pedro Fernandes de Lima.Footnote 25
Working conditions in permanent opera houses
Apparently, our first actors and actresses were free men and women who benefited from relative liberty regarding their professional activity. This liberty was ‘relative’ because no work performed by lower classes was completely free in eighteenth-century Brazil: domestic workers and those in lower military positions also suffered severe physical punishment if they did not follow the rules established by their superiors. Conversely, some documents affirm that actors and actresses from eighteenth-century theatres could quit their jobs or even change cities: such was the case of the actors at the Opera House of Porto Alegre or the actress Ana Joaquina da Silva, who left the Opera House of Vila Rica to live in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the eighteenth century.Footnote 26 Even more striking is the case of the actress Eufrásia Joaquina Mascarenhas, a Brazilian performer who appeared in several theatrical productions in Buenos Aires between 1750 and 1770.Footnote 27
Since for every rule there is an exception, one must mention the case of one operário from the São Paulo Opera House at the end of the eighteenth century.Footnote 28 This actor, not happy with his profession, decided to run away from the company administrated by Antônio Manso for the powerful Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão, then Governor of the captaincy of São Paulo. A performance on 6 May 1770 had to be cancelled for that reason. A few days later, it was found that the artist had gone to Goiás, but he was arrested in Jacuí, a city in the captaincy of Minas Gerais, following the orders of the Governor of São Paulo, who spared no efforts to recover ‘his operário’.Footnote 29 To understand this case fully, we must consider that, apparently, throughout the duration of their contract, actors and actresses could quit their positions only at one specific time of the year, and they could not do so outside the previously stipulated date. Even if they were unhappy at work, during the validity of the contract, they were forced to take the roles assigned to them, rehearse, and perform on the due dates. The only way that they could avoid going on stage was in fact to run away; however, that act could be punished with imprisonment, as if they were enslaved. The case of the actor from São Paulo calls attention to the effort taken by the Governor to recover and punish him for having abandoned the company. The episode also shows that Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão (Figure 4), was directly involved in the activity of the Opera House of São Paulo, and took anything relating to the theatre personally. Another example of the possessive behaviour of the Governor involved the theatre’s impresario, Antônio Manso, and a soldier from the Governor’s guard, who became involved in a struggle in front of the palace and were both arrested. As soon as Botelho Mourão heard what had happened, he became furious and ordered the impresario to be released immediately and the soldier to be punished in the public square, like an enslaved man, for daring to assault ‘such an amusing’ figure in front of his palace.Footnote 30
D. Luís António de Sousa Botelho Mourão. Fundação Casa de Mateus, Vila Real (Portugal).
In most cases concerning actors and actresses from the permanent public opera houses, the working relationships involve stable contracts with very precise conditions. The best example is the signed contract dated 9 July 1805 between priest Amaro de Souza Machado, owner of the Opera House of Porto Alegre, and several actors and actresses of the company. In this contract, actors Luís Caetano, Luciano de Sousa Correia, Ricardo José dos Santos, Joaquim Martins Ferreira, José Jacinto da Luz, António Pereira Machado, Floriana Maria da Conceição, Ana Rosa de Oliveira and Maria Benedita de Queirós commit themselves to performing every Sunday and on the birthdays of the members of the Royal Family and colonial authorities; to accept the roles designated by the directors of the theatre without arguing; to attend every rehearsal, including when there are more than one on the same day; to accept that, should they be sick for more than twenty days, they would not receive any salary; never to miss a performance without presenting a medical certificate; to donate to the theatre the theatrical plays produced during their personal benefit evenings; not to let anyone from outside the company enter the theatre during rehearsals or performances; to respect the rule that actors from different sexes should not enter the costume room together; to only quit the company on Ash Wednesday; and not to ask for their salaries until the very last day of an opera in case the theatre suffered an accident. The impresario, meanwhile, could fire the actors at any time if they did not respect these rules, but he committed himself to paying the actors and actresses every month the value agreed with each of them in private contracts, even in the case that they were sick for up to twenty days; to allow them to use the sets and costumes from the theatre on their benefit nights; and, in the case that they were fired, to pay their salary corresponding to their last worked day. We do not know the ethnicity of these actors, but we do know that they were all free, and that Floriana Maria da Conceição and Ana Rosa de Oliveira did not know how to read or write and were therefore represented in the contract by other people.Footnote 31
Given that the above-mentioned contract was signed in 1805, the conditions of work cannot be considered analogous to slavery in any form. Indeed, some of the clauses seem to be ahead of their time – for instance, the right to up to twenty days of paid sick leave if they presented medical documentation. Furthermore, the fact that the individual contracts stipulated benefit evenings, from which all the income of the performance would go to the actors for whom the benefit was intended, and the fact that, on those evenings, actors could use the costumes and sets of the theatre for free, exemplify the favourable working conditions of these professionals.
Women performing in public theatres
Other artists in Brazilian eighteenth-century theatres apparently achieved reasonable financial independence, at least during their engagement at an opera house. For instance, the actress Violanta Mônica da Cruz, engaged at the Opera House of Vila Rica, lent 200,000 réis to Manuel Machado Dutra so that he could be ordained a priest in 1792. Mr Dutra was the owner of two houses ‘going to the Ouro Preto mountain’ and allowed the actress to use them as security for the loan. Should he not repay her in a six-year period, Violanta would become the owner of the houses.Footnote 32 This contract proves that, at the time, the actress had a fairly good financial situation, one that allowed her to lend a significant amount of money. However, in 1804, she was no longer living in the houses of Machado Dutra but in a house in the neighbourhood of Cabeças, on the outskirts of the city, with her two daughters, named Agostinha and Thereza, who were thirty and twenty-five years old, respectively, and a four-year-old minor named Ivo Antônio.Footnote 33 She also had a son named Bonifácio, who no longer lived with the family in 1804. Violanta was biracial and poor, according to the census. She was not married, and her children’s birth certificates do not mention the name of the children’s father (or fathers).Footnote 34 As a singer and actress, she enjoyed a relatively long career, performing from the 1780s until the close of the eighteenth century, both at the Opera House of Vila Rica and in public celebrations, such as the festivities held in the city for the wedding of Prince João and Princess Carlota Joaquina in 1786.Footnote 35 However, we may assume that her financial condition declined after she left her job at the Opera House.
By contrast, Violanta’s colleague Francisca Luciana faced severe financial difficulties even during her period of employment; at least, this is what the legal suit preserved at the Arquivo Histórico do Museu da Inconfidência reveals. In these documents, Luciana asks the impresario of the Opera House at the time, Antônio de Padua, for a loan of two octaves of gold, claiming that she did not have anything to eat.Footnote 36 However, it is important to mention that the legal suit was filed by the impresario against the actress, and, in the process, he affirms that he had always paid her salary but, beyond that, he had also lent her some money to buy dresses and pay her housing rent. Does this tell us that at least some of the salaries paid to actresses were excessively low, to the point that they could not afford their living expenses, or is this a particular case of poor administration of the actress’s salary? This process was codified in 1801, but Francisca Luciana was still in the company of the Opera House of Vila Rica in 1811, proving that the profession of actor at least assured some stability.
Not only in Vila Rica did actresses have access to a stable income through engagement at an opera house. In São Paulo, Pulquéria Maria Antônia de Oliveira had two slaves and her colleague Gertrudes MariaFootnote 37 had one.Footnote 38 Considering that the average price of a female slave between fifteen and forty years old in 1789 was 88,000 réis,Footnote 39 the fact that a mere actress could have two shows that her financial condition was far from miserable.
However, some actors and actresses kept parallel professions, as was the case of the leading man of the São Paulo Opera House, José Rodrigues Cardim, who was also a tailor, and of the above-mentioned actress Violante Mônica da Cruz from Vila Rica, who was also a seamstress and lacemaker.Footnote 40 In the case of the Opera House of São Paulo, we know that, in 1798, the leading actors received 8,000 réis, the second-ranked artists were paid 6,000 réis, and the least important ones earned 4,000 réis per month.Footnote 41 A few years later, in 1811, the Opera House of Vila Rica paid an average of 6,000 réis to its artists – 1,600 réis per performance for men and 1,800 réis per performance for women in a total of forty-five performances in one year.Footnote 42 We must also consider that not all actors and actresses took part in every performance, which could affect their payment considerably; in any case, it would not be a full-time job. As a comparison, the same theatre paid 750 réis per performance to its orchestral musicians,Footnote 43 while the working day of a white adult without qualifications cost around 320 réis. Footnote 44
Concerning the background of the actors and actresses employed in the Brazilian eighteenth-century opera houses, documents prove that most of them knew how to read and write; however, as noted above, a few women were illiterate,Footnote 45 a fact that would certainly make their profession more difficult. It is important to mention that most women in eighteenth-century Portugal and Brazil did not know how to read or write, including some elite ladies.Footnote 46 Some of the singers were single mothers, like Eufrásia Joaquina MascarenhasFootnote 47, Violante Mônica da Cruz and Pulquéria Maria Antônia de Oliveira, and the great majority were biracial.
We may learn more about Brazilian theatrical practices and local actors from reports made by foreign travellers who visited Brazil in the first decades of the nineteenth century. For instance, in 1830, Auguste de Saint-Hilaire wrote that, in Vila Rica, ‘actors need to cover their faces with a thick layer of white and red; but their hands betray the colour nature has given them, proving that the great majority is mulato’.Footnote 48 The Dutchman Quirjn Huel, who had the chance to watch a performance in Salvador da Bahia, states that the ‘main roles were curiously assumed by half-caste with very dark skin. Those, to look like they are white, use a white powder over their faces and put some bright red make-up of bad quality on their cheeks.’Footnote 49 The use of white make-up on Black or biracial actors and actresses seemed to be a common practice in all Luso-American theatres in the early nineteenth-century. The fact is that audience members knew the ethnic background of the actors yet preferred to see them with ‘whiteface’.
We cannot assess the condition of actors and actresses of African descent in eighteenth-century Brazil without mentioning Joaquina Lapinha, the most important and successful actress and singer, who was engaged at the Opera House of Rio de Janeiro in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century. The daughter of a biracial woman, probably from Minas Gerais,Footnote 50 Lapinha was the first opera singer from Brazil to perform in a European theatre in the eighteenth century. She was also one of the first women to be engaged at the recently inaugurated São Carlos Theatre of Lisbon after Queen Maria I’s almost-twenty-year prohibition against women performing on public stages was lifted.Footnote 51 Hired alongside two Italian artists with a certain reputation, Lapinha was highly acclaimed by the public and critics of the Portuguese capital. She stayed for more than ten years in the metropole,Footnote 52 performing in Oporto and Coimbra as well as Lisbon, even though her ‘dark’ skin led Swedish traveller Carl Israel Ruders to recommend that this could ‘be corrected with cosmetics’.Footnote 53 It is interesting to note that Lapinha apparently did not wear any white make-up during her performances in Lisbon, unlike the great majority of her colleagues in Brazil.
Lapinha returned to Rio de Janeiro at the beginning of the nineteenth-century, where she was again engaged at the Opera House as one of the principal singers of the company. She remained in this position even after 1808, when the Portuguese court was transferred to Rio de Janeiro because of Napoleon’s invasions, bringing several European artists to the new capital in the tropics. Lapinha had travelled with her mother and two freed slaves named Eva and Inácia. She died single and had no children. She was apparently deeply Catholic and was buried with the shroud of Our Lady of Conception.Footnote 54 She also left a last will and testament and some houses in the central street, Rua do Conde, of Rio de Janeiro, proving that her long and successful career as a singer and actress had allowed her to build up a considerable inheritance and live a comfortable life. This level of success was well beyond what was attainable for most Afro-Brazilian women during those decades.
Another artist worth mentioning is the bass João dos Reis Pereira, who performed alongside Joaquina Lapinha in Rio de Janeiro for several years. Balbi also includes a report on this particular singer:
This mulatto from Rio de Janeiro is reputed to be the leading bass-baritone among the Portuguese; the king even called him his Monbelli, due to the striking resemblance of his voice to that of the famous Italian artistFootnote 55.
Like Joaquina Lapinha, João dos Reis continued to be part of the company performing at Rio de Janeiro’s Opera House after the transfer of the Portuguese court in 1808. He was born in São João del Rei (Minas Gerais) in 1782Footnote 56 and was likely one of the most successful Brazilian musicians during the transition between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to his career as a singer at the Opera House and the Royal Chapel, he was a copyist and the legal representative of the Santa Cecília fraternity. In 1810, he was appointed singer of the Royal Chapel with a salary of 300,000 réis Footnote 57 per year, which was increased by 120,000 réis in 1815 and by 25,000 réis in 1818. In 1820, his salary was raised again by King João VI to 76,800 réis. By 1828, João dos Reis was receiving an annual payment of 521,800 réis, which continued until at least 1831. Even in 1841–2, when the institution was in decline and offering lower salaries to its employees, João dos Reis was still the highest-paid artist.Footnote 58 In his golden years, João dos Reis’s salary increased by 73% over ten years, which demonstrates how highly he was valued by the king.
From the above discussion, we can conclude that, at least for a considerable part of Afro-descendant and free men and women, the professions of actor/actress and singer allowed a degree of financial stability that was not common in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Brazil. It is also surprising how a society that was strongly rooted in the slavery system and racial pre-judgement not only accepted but also paid to see Black and biracial artists on the stages of the Luso-American colony. Did this happen because they had no other options? Maybe. Would it be because they recognised that these men and women were truly gifted in the art of music? A lot of people, Brazilians and Europeans, thought so and left their impressions in letters, journals and reports.
This does not diminish the terrible conditions imposed on every man and woman of African descent at that time, and it does not erase the fact that they were forced, or ‘recommended’ in the case of Joaquina Lapinha, to hide their skin colour using cosmetics, even though all the members of the audience knew their ethnic origins very well. We cannot ignore that engagement at an opera house was stable and, while not always well paid, it was certainly paid; that the working conditions did not seem to involve any physical punishment as long as the clauses established in the contracts were respected; that these men and women were somewhat free to move to other cities and sometimes countries; and that they were free to quit their positions as long as they respected the time frame established in the contracts. The job apparently allowed the majority of artists a reasonable quality of life, and it was certainly an option to be considered by those who, forced to live on the border of society because of their ethnic origin in a cruel administration system in which slavery was a pillar that would still take almost a century to be knocked down, were ‘curious about the art of performing’ or showed ‘a natural talent for the stage’.
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