We have the history, we lack the museum

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Everything I had imagined, full of prejudices, collapsed. For those who love theater, it’s as good as going to see a play (depending on the show, it’s even better). The museum walks the line of what Americans do like no one else: tell a story well told. The Coppola Winery Tour in California begins with a visit to an area with its Oscar statuettes, “Godfather” costumes and a copy of the “Apocalypse Now” script. A little out of place in a cellar, but irresistible.

A tour of the Broadway Museum — an area that housed 70 theaters in the 1920s (today there are 40 theaters, with at least 500 seats each) — covers all phases: from the first artistic performance in the region, in 1732, through the birth of the musical genre, after the Civil War, the move of theaters to Midtown, the flight of real estate speculation in the early 20th century, the depression of 1929, the post-war euphoria, the decline in the 1960s and the resurgence 20 years later. Original costumes, models, sets, atmospheres with original music, scores, everything in the museum is built to honor the past and fascinate the public. Americans understood that telling their story well meant maintaining public interest in what was happening today.

Even though Broadway is still struggling to find its feet after the pandemic, singing along to “Wicked” or crying to “The Lion King” remains one of the main reasons that attract tourists to the city and, therefore, revenue for public coffers: last season, 14.7 million spectators generated nearly $2 billion.

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In Portugal, the small town of Marco de Canaveses, where Carmen Miranda was born, is home to a sumptuous museum dedicated to the singer. It’s breathtaking. In Brazil, where Carmen lived and made her career, the space dedicated to the singer is shy and claustrophobic, in a construction site in Aterro do Flamengo. The behemoth skeleton of the Museum of Image and Sound (MIS) is a slap in the face to anyone passing by on Avenida Atlântica. Everything has been spent and more and, more than ten years late, the work is not yet finished. In the 1950s, a museum dedicated to Brazilian theater operated at the Municipality. It was popular and visited. Then he moved to Botafogo Manor until it closed. The Funarte collection was transferred to Casa da Moeda, but since the pandemic it has been inaccessible to the public.

Some altruistic people still resist. Marcelo Del Cima keeps an impressive collection, probably the largest in Latin America, in a magnificent mansion in Glória. With the invaluable help of researcher Daniel Marano, more than half a million items are maintained, such as costumes, posters, programs, objects, photos, awards. Cataloging and preserving so much material takes time and costs money. Without any state support, despite repeated requests, the precious collection cannot be exhibited to the public.