In 1983, José Afonso, already severely weakened by the illness that would lead to his death four years later, took to the stages of the Coliseu dos Recreios and the Coliseu do Porto for his final concerts. Accompanied by his long-time music collaborators, he faced with dignity and emotion the difficult task of singing at a time when his health was already failing him. The Lisbon concert, recorded by RTP, became a landmark in Portugal’s collective memory and was later preserved in an album, a video recording, and, more recently, in a restored edition that recovers almost the entire performance.

José Afonso, ao vivo nos Coliseus, 1983 is a multidisciplinary performance interweaving music, theatre, performance art, and poetry, with artistic direction by Gonçalo Amorim and original texts by Lígia Soares, Marta Figueiredo, Miguel Cardoso, Rui Pina Coelho, and Susana Moreira Marques. The production does not aim to reconstruct the original concert, but rather to reinvent it through a contemporary approach inspired by Gig Theatre—a hybrid form that blends the energy of live concerts with theatrical storytelling—reinterpreting Zeca’s legacy with creative freedom and deep emotional resonance.

The performance stems from the symbolic farewell these concerts represented—not only the farewell of an artist, but also the end of an era. With José Afonso’s departure, Portugal seemed also to bid farewell to the revolutionary utopia of April 1974, at a time when the country was preparing for new transformations. It is with this historical and emotional awareness that the production evokes the courage, melancholy, and resilience of a people, celebrating the memory of one of its greatest singers and the indelible echo of his voice in the making of Portuguese democracy.