O “maestro da abolição” e sua ópera O Escravo: dilemas do pensamento social na transição para a República

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to recognize the aims and the historical, political and sociological implications that guided the life and work of Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-96), which at the apex of the abolitionist movement led to replacement of a black person by a native Brazilian as the main character of his opera Lo Schiavo [The Slave], finished in 1888; he thus repeated the same character utilized in O Guarani, composed eighteen years before. The text focused on the cultural and social relationship between the State and the composer’s artistic production linked to Brazil’s imperial politics; bearing this in mind, an effort was made to ponder the objectives and political implications that led Gomes to substitute a native Brazilian for a black character in The Slave. The research on the life and work of the Brazilian conductor is here conceived as a means for reflecting on the political-cultural ideas that emerged in late nineteenth-century Brazilian urban and educated society, such as Indianism, the greatest form of Brazilian romanticism, and on concepts such as “patrimonialization” in the moment of the formation of a national social and historical thought.