“Adilson” is a five-act opera in which we follow the journey of a man of African descent, born in Angola to parents from Cape Verde, who has lived in Portugal for over 40 years without ever obtaining Portuguese citizenship. D’Afonsa to his friends, Nuno to his family, Adilson on his passport, his life plays out between waiting rooms, delayed hearings and a bureaucratic maze that prevents him from being fully recognised by the country he has always called home.

More than an individual, Adilson represents thousands of people left on the margins of the system. The opera turns waiting into poetry and turns invisibility into an act of resistance. At the culmination of the work, we hear the cry that echoes beyond the stage: “I am not Portuguese. I am Portugal. A country waiting.”