Carnival
The Carnival Season is a holiday period during the two weeks before the traditional Christian fasting of Lent. The celebration of Carnival ends on “Mardi Gras”, the day before Ash Wednesday, when the rigors of Lent’s 40 days of fasting and sacrifice begin. The origin of the name is unclear. The most common theory is that it comes from the Latin caro (meat) + vale (farewell), literally “farewell to the meat” or “stop eating meat”. This period of celebration and partying had its origin in the need to use up all remaining meat and animal products such as eggs and butter before the fasting season.
Carnival in Rio de Janeiro
Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is known worldwide for the elaborate parades staged by the city’s major samba schools and is one of the world’s major tourist attractions. The event is the result of months of preparation involving all the neighbourhoods of Rio. There are two classes of samba school: those which parade on the Avenida Rio Branco and those at the Sambodrome. The former are considered less prestigious, but are top quality nonetheless and also are free while tickets for the Sambodrome are usually quite expensive, with prices ranging from US$200 to US$700 and over.
Every school performs to win the favour of the onlookers and their enthusiasm whips the crowds into a frenzy of singing and dancing. Among the confetti, floats, skimpy-sequinned costumes and masquerades, the boundaries of race, gender, sex and class are transcended and the masses party in the name of samba and carnival. Judges are placed at strategic points along the route and grade the contestants on everything from enthusiasm, discipline and costume to rhythm and dance.
Carnival in Venice
Carnival (Carnevale), Venice’s answer to Mardi Gras and Fasching, is the most important and magnificent of Venetian celebrations, a cocktail of tradition, spectacle, history and transgression set in a unique city, attracting thousands of people each year. For eight days before Lent, tourists flood the city creating an orgy of pageants, commedia dell’arte, concerts and masked balls until Shrove Tuesday.
The carnival has ancient origins as after 1162 the Republic began a tradition of slaughtering a bull and 12 pigs in the Piazza San Marco around Shrove Tuesday to commemorate the victory over Ulrico, Patriarch of Aquileia in that year, and officially in 1296 when the Senate of the Republic authorized it with an edict declaring the day before Lent as a day of celebrating both the passing of winter into spring and the illusion of the humble classes of becoming similar to the powerful, since everyone wears a mask. In its glory days of the 1700s, Carnival started on December 26 and lasted until Ash Wednesday, with mask-wearing and other unofficial activities continuing well into the spring and reflecting the decline of the Venetian Republic. After Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Venice in 1797, the Republic was finished and so were the desultory remnants of Carnival.
The traditions of the carnival were recovered by the Municipality in 1980 and since then the event has been held with great success. Each year with a different, underlying theme developed under various points of view, from culture to pure spectacle. For two weeks St. Marks’ Square, the theaters, streets, squares and public buildings become the protagonists of numerous activities and shows with actors, acrobats, dancers musicians and masquarading visitors bringing a celebration atmosphere to the city. Venetian palaces host masked balls and gala feasts in costume and fashion houses offer splendid period costumes, wigs and masks for hire.
Mardi Gras dates:
- 2009: February 24
- 2010: February 16
- 2011: March 8
- 2012: February 21
- 2013: February 12
- 2014: March 4
- 2015: February 17
- 2016: February 9
- 2017: February 28
- 2018: February 13
- 2019: March 5
- 2020: February 25
