A samba dancer parades during the Rio Carnival on April 22, 2022. SILVIA IZQUIERDO / AP
And suddenly a scream. Serious, hoarse, jubilant. Hurled at the top of their lungs by a cheering crowd, it rises and flies towards the night sky of Rio de Janeiro. It is on Friday, April 22, shortly after 10 p.m., when the Imperatriz Leopoldinense samba school takes to the track of the Sambadrome, initiating the carnival parades. And from the first salvos of the bateria, the “wonderful city” did not hesitate to howl its joy, in a sublime, almost triumphant noise that sounds like the return to life for a city and a country badly shaken by two years of pandemic .
“Prepare your heart! ! ! ‘ the master of ceremonies yelled into his microphone. An instant shiver runs through the arquibancadas, those long concrete grandstands designed by Oscar Niemeyer. There are joy and even tears on the faces of the thousands of spectators. For the cariocas, there is no longer any need to hide their emotions behind an anti-Covid mask: the latter has not been compulsory for weeks.
Contamination rates are lowest. After a canceled 2021 edition and a long uncertain 2022 edition, which was then postponed to April, the city is ready for its big party. She looks like a drunk boat ready to capsize with happiness.
Performers from the Sao Clemente samba school parade on a float during the Rio Carnival April 23, 2022. SILVIA IZQUIERDO / AP
“It’s wonderful, wonderful! So beautiful ! So much emotion! Everything is different, but nothing has changed! ” is Artur Franco, interpreter of the first enredo, moved, this song punctuates the parades of the schools. At the side of this man with the powerful voice, dressed in an impeccable costume, stands the whole army of Brazilian happiness: queens, muses and princesses with feathers and pearl panties, Roman legionnaires armed with inflatable toucans, Marie-Antoinette in purple wigs, dancing Sunflowers, ballerinas, magicians or pharaohs… All accompanied by allegorical chariots 20 meters high, a marvel of painted fabrics and polystyrene, a baroque mix of ingenuity and ingenuity.
found proud
During two parade nights, Friday and Saturday, it is, like the biggest days, the return of the traffic jams of feathers and sequins on the 700 meters of the Avenue du Sambodrome. “Magnificence! Lindissimo! Gigantaaaaaço! [Splendeur ! Magnifique ! Enoooorme !] », shout the bays, celebrating the return of happy days and rediscovered pride.
Several of the twelve schools competing in the Special Group (the most prestigious) have also chosen to use their own history as the theme of the parade. Such is the case of the Vila Isabela, which paid homage to the carioca sambiste Martinho da Vila, or the popular pink and green Mangueira, which celebrated the memory of its “gods” and founding fathers, Cartola, Jamelão and Mestre Delegado.
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