‘It’s Carnival time, everybody’s having fun!’
The season of Advent in December ends on Christmas Eve, followed by New Year’s Eve. The last day of the holiday season, when we take our Christmas tree down, marks the start of the happiest time of the year, the Carnival period. Carnival differs from country to country, as Carnival celebrations have long tradition and attract immense crowds in many countries, while other places do not celebrate Carnival and the festive season passes quietly. One thing is for sure, those who decide to participate in a Carnival parade will have a lot of fun in the early months of the year.
To bid farewell to winter and welcome the arrival of spring, the Carnival season is an almost endless series of huge feasts, balls, parties and public celebrations. Carnival celebrations reach their peak in the last few days of the season, but the length of the period differs from country to country. Carnival celebrations culminate in street processions, festivals and parades on Shrove Tuesday that always falls 47 days before Easter Sunday. Revelry ends at midnight and these final festivities mark the start of the 40-day Lenten fast period before Easter.
The name Carnival is said to derive from the words carne vale ‘farewell to meat’, which explain the function of the celebration and imply that the Lenten season begins on the day following the huge celebration and revelry, because, in Christianity, abstinence from meat is to be observed during the Lenten period.
Numerous famous and large Carnivals are held around the world, three of them are detailed in this article: Rio Carnival, Venice Carnival and Basel Carnival.
The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro has been celebrated since 1928 and has become one of the most famous and flamboyant festivities in the world. Official participants of the parade dress up in extravagant and glitzy costumes and dancers perform spectacular samba choreography. Students of samba schools also dance in the parade in sensational costumes, impressing revellers with their dance moves. The Brazilian Carnival combines elaborate spectacle, music, dancing and revelry in celebration of life.
Now, let’s go on to the slightly quieter and more elegant Carnival of Venice. With a thousand-year-old history behind its back, the Carnival of Venice is one of the world’s oldest Carnival celebrations. The event has inspired numerous artistic works, including musical compositions, and has also been mentioned in several literary works. Giacomo Casanova, the most famous womanizer, writes in his memoirs that these celebrations were all about the loosening of morals.
The Carnival celebrations last for several days, locals and tourists wear elaborate masks and stunning costumes and join the parade led by ‘actors’. Tradition and innovation come together in total harmony: the ox leading the street procession is no longer slaughtered, but, as a high point, revellers still say farewell to the Prince of the Carnival on the last day of the festivities.
The historical water parade consists of a gondolas parade along the Grand Canal, and the whole canal is filled with beautifully decorated gondolas full of costumed revellers. Masked revellers take to the canals in flotillas of gondolas and even have lunch and dinner on and watch the magnificent Venice fireworks from gondolas.
The Carnival in Basel is very famous and attracts many Swiss and foreign visitors. In 2017, UNESCO added Basel Carnival to its representative list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Locals call the Carnival period the ‘three best days’ in the year. Basel Carnival breaks with the Christian tradition and starts on the Monday after Ash Wednesday at precisely 4 am. Masked carnival-goers parade with lanterns through the streets of Basel early Monday morning. All light in the city centre is switched off at exactly 4 am and processions parade the streets in complete darkness, only illuminated by the light of their own lanterns.
The Carnival lasts for exactly 72 hours and ends on Thursday morning at 4 am. Both adults and children can participate in several Carnival programmes. Schools close for the Carnival holiday and many Swiss take a few days off to be able to actively take part in the Carnival. The Carnival turns the city ‘upside-down’ for three whole days: revellers parade through the streets in masks, as the Carnival is a time of reckless abandon.
