Por um “teatro decente”: transformações do trabalho teatral na capital do vice-reino do Brasil-Rio de Janeiro (1808-1822)

This study investigates the change in the theatre organization in Rio de Janeiro due to the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in 1808. Up to then, the only existing theater in the capital of the vice-kingdom Manuel Luiz Ferreira’s Casa da Ópera followed the architectural, repertoire, scenery, costumes and organizational patterns of the Portuguese public theatres of the 18th century with a peculiar characteristic: most of its artists were free and enslaved Portuguese-Brazilian, Blacks, and mestizos individuals. This reality gradually changed with the arrival of the Bragança court in Rio de Janeiro as the monarch ordered the construction of the Real Theatro São João — the ‘decent theater’ in the words of the prince regent in 1813 — and favored the hiring of European actors and actresses. By exploring this ongoing change in the organization of the theater, this research seeks to constitute the colonial scene up to the arrival of the royal family in 1808 to question the whereabouts of local artists and to look for traces of their presence on the 19th-century scene.