António Lourenço

António Lourenço is an opera and cinema enthusiast whose life has been deeply intertwined with the performing arts, both as a musician and as a devoted observer of the world’s great cultural stages.

He received his lyrical training as a singer at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, where he performed as a tenor with the São Carlos Choir. For more than two decades, he also sang with the Lisboa Cantat Symphonic Choir, dedicating himself especially to the great masterpieces of sacred choral music. Alongside his choral work, he performed solo recitals of Italian opera arias and pursued studies in sight-singing and piano.

He refined his vocal and musical skills in masterclasses in Italy and Spain with distinguished artists, including the legendary soprano Montserrat Caballé and the renowned baritone Renato Bruson, as well as other prominent singers, pianists, and instrumental virtuosos. His repertoire has spanned a wide range of composers, from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner to Fauré, Poulenc, and Gershwin, embracing opera, symphonic-choral works, and sacred music. He has taken part in numerous large-scale works, including more than thirty performances of Carmina Burana, and has sung in eight languages.

Beyond performing, António has spent decades attending opera and concerts in many of the world’s leading venues. Since 1959, he has followed the seasons at São Carlos and has attended performances at houses such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in London, the Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille in Paris, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and the Bayreuth Festival. He has also attended concerts in major European halls and at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, hearing many of the 20th century’s most celebrated conductors, singers, and instrumentalists during what he considers a golden era of performance.

His passion for the arts extends equally to cinema. A dedicated film lover, he has watched thousands of films at the Cinemateca in Lisbon and in Spain, attended masterclasses with filmmakers, interviewed director Costa-Gavras, and taken part in some film productions. His interest in live performance also includes theatre, with memorable experiences attending productions in London featuring actors such as Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield, and Maggie Smith.

As a critic and commentator, António Lourenço approaches both opera and film with a sensitivity to detail, artistic intention, and cultural context. He listens and watches with the ear of a musician and the eye of a storyteller, always attentive to the dialogue between tradition and innovation, and eager to share that lifelong passion with others.