tiagofigueiredo Episode 1 - a person is born and registered with a name

Episode 1 - A person is born and registered with a name

tiagofigueiredo Episode 2 - it's the worst feeling a person can have

Episode 2 - It's the worst feeling a person can have

tiagofigueiredo Episode 3 - if I knew what this was

Episode 3 - If I Knew What This Was

tiagofigueiredo · Episode 4 - you, tomorrow, can be in one cell and I can be in another cell

Episode 4 - you, tomorrow, can be in one cell and I can be in another cell

tiagofigueiredo Episode 5 - What won't a mother do for her child?

Episode 5 - What won't a mother do for her child?

2015

Freedom for Leporello!

“In September 2015, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation commissioned me to produce a podcast about the “Opera in Prison” project, the staging of Mozart’s D. Giovanni at the Leiria Prison Establishment (EPL), a prison-school for inmates aged between 16 and 24.

I knew that the project was enjoying immense success, with a lot of media coverage, television and radio reports, and newspaper articles. The proposal from the FCG Music Service was to tell the story in five separate episodes, to be presented weekly, preferably lasting no more than five minutes. I accepted the challenge with enthusiasm. I set out to explore the participants, inmates, family members, guards, and music teachers.

I was generously given a week to complete the work, following the last intensive days of rehearsals before the big public presentation to the inmates' families. During these days I entered a world I had never known before, trying to understand as quickly as possible the relationships between the inmates, the prison guards and the EPL management.

It wasn’t always an easy job, a race against time trying to integrate, gain confidence, learn and want to get to know each person’s world. One week is nothing. There are 8-year sentences to be served. But it was so much. It brought friendships and longing and an immense desire for projects like “Opera in Prison” to become obvious and unanimous tools in a place that is intended to be about integration and not punishment.”

Tiago Figueiredo / Lighthearted

“Freedom for Leporello!” is an audio-documentary about the project “Opera in Prison D. Giovanni 1003, Leporello 2015” – the staging of Mozart’s opera with the participation of inmates from the Leiria Prison, developed by the Sociedade Artística Musical dos Pousos, within the scope of the PARTIS Programme – Artistic Practices for Social Inclusion of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

“Freedom for Leporello!” is the first of four audio-documentaries in a series of four podcasts commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Music Service, produced in partnership with the Terra do Som collective and Antena 2.