For the historiography of women conductors in Portugal

women conductors under dictatorship (1926-1974)

Abstract

Josephine Amann (1840-1887) was the first woman conducting an orchestra in Portugal, in 1879. It was only almost half a century later that Francine Benoît (1894-1990) conducted a women´s orchestra, in 1928. In the decades between 1930 and 1960, more women followed, among which Berta Alves de Sousa (1906-1997), Natércia Couto (1924-1999) and Elvira de Freitas (1927-2015) stand out for the most regular activity. However, all these women´s conducting calling was short-lived.

The career of women conductors in Portugal was shaped by the ruling regime and these women´s relationship with it, as well as by the dominant gender ideology and the respective oppression of women. In this article, I build a genealogy of women conductors in Portugal during the authoritarian State (1926-1974).