The Teatro Nacional Dona Maria II reopens in Lisbon after three years of renovation

After being closed for three years due to renovation work financed by NextGenerationEU funds, the Teatro Nacional Dona Maria II (Tndm II), the city's main drama theater and one of the most important in Portugal, will reopen in Lisbon on 18 September.

In the last three years the theater has decentralized its production to other rooms, but for the return to the historic location of the central Rossio square three days of celebrations are planned, during which it will be possible to take guided tours to explore the renovated spaces of the building also through specific exhibitions: one dedicated to its 180 years of existence and the other dedicated precisely to its restoration, which cost around 15 million euros and was carried out thanks to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

At the center of the reopening celebrations there will naturally be a theater show. The director and artistic director of Tndm II, Pedro Penim, has chosen William Shakespeare's Macbeth, which will be on stage from 18 September to 31 October, performed by a cast led by the couple José Raposo and Bárbara Branco. The choice of Macbeth, for Penim, in addition to the intrinsic value of the work, also represents a "challenge to destiny" and a fusion of "past and future, in what will be the inaugural act of a building that takes up its own history". The black legend that surrounds this drama by Shakespeare, in fact, also struck Lisbon in that very theatre. Macbeth itself was on stage on the fateful night of 2 December 1964, when the Tndm II was destroyed by a violent fire, after which only in 1978 was the building able to reopen its doors to the public. Since then Macbeth has never been staged again.