THE POLITICS OF SILENCE: MARIO DE ANDRADE AND THE SAO PAULO'S MUSICAL THEATER IN THE 1920s AND 1930s

This article analyzes the silence of Mario de Andrade in relation to the musical theater. How is it possible that this author, who devoted so much attention to other important cultural vehicles of the time, such as records, silent films and printed scores, was so silent regarding the operettas, burletas and revues, which were the main public amusement of Sao Paulo in the 1920s and 1930s? The analysis of some of his journalistic, poetic and programmatic texts, one of them being an unpublished autograph, reveals that such silence was set up only in the late 1920s, when the structuring of a cultural goods market and the strong Italian presence in the Sao Paulo's musical and theatrical life came to be seen as a threat to the project of building a both national and artistic music.