PR considers that in Portugal “it is rare to find patrons” of arts and music
“It is very rare to find patrons in the field of the arts and in particular music. We are not a country with cultural patronage, as is public and notorious”, considered the head of state, pointing out that social patronage is more common in Portugal.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke after having visited, together with the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, the exhibition “”Il Fanatico per la musica: The Count of Farrobo and the Teatro das Laranjeiras”.
On display at Teatro Thalia, in Lisbon, an exhibition that portrays the life of Joaquim Pedro Quintela do Farrobo.
“Because he was, in addition to everything else, a cultural patron”, indicated the President of the Republic, noting that “he did it out of taste, by vocation, as an instrumentalist, he sang, played, cultivated proximity to this environment”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa considered that Joaquim Pedro Quintela do Farrobo, who lived in the 21st century and to whom the expression “forrobodó” is linked, “was an exceptional minister” because “there was no area of activity in which he was not present”.
Pointing out that Portugal is “a country that is not given to business leaders” and that “there are many powerful businessmen, but in each historical period there are very few who innovatively mark what is the advancement of the Portuguese economy”, the head of state He considered that “it was the case of the Count of Farrobo”.
“In a country where liberalism arrived late and lasted little, and where both the right and the left are predominantly non-liberal, from almost its beginnings, finding a liberal who was liberal in convictions but who was also privileged in what he launched, regardless of what it promoted, it is extremely rare,” he added.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also considered that it is in times of instability that emerge, when they emerge, personalities and initiatives that most accelerate assert themselves, ironically, in more stable institutional times”.
“And this exhibition is also fascinating. We can see what it means, through the life of an exceptional man, to change a country”, he declared.
And it determined that “it is universal who goes up and claims to have millions around him and who enters in relative disgrace starts to have dozens with him, but this is a universal lesson lived more intensely when it is a transition period”.
“We’re rehabilitating a man who doesn’t need it, it’s worth it in itself, but we’re also realizing what the affirmation of liberalism was, what a unique period of mental, economic and social and therefore cultural transformation was, and how that is so close to us, seeming so far away, that is, we are contributing to the history of our country”, stressed the President of the Republic.
Earlier, the Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education indicated that this exhibition began to be organized before the covid-19 pandemic and noted that “it reveals the various facets of the man who conceived and toured this theater and who lived in the halls in the halls of the palace” in which he works, at Palácio das Laranjeiras.
“The life of someone so important for Lisbon and for the country finally receives the attention it deserves. He was essential for the Portuguese economy, politics and culture”, defended Elvira Fortunato, agreeing that he was “an unforgettable figure of the arts in Portugal”.
The exhibition, organized by the General Secretariat for Education and Science, can be visited until March 31 of next year and has free admission, at Teatro Thalia, on Estrada das Laranjeiras, in Lisbon.