Ana Moura is universally acknowledged as one of Portugal’s finest young fado singers. Thanks to her recent Carnegie Hall debut, Moura has attracted legions of American fans and also solidified her reputation abroad.Like American blues, Argentinean tango and Greek rembetika, fado (literally,...
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Ana Moura is universally acknowledged as one of Portugal’s finest young fado singers. Thanks to her recent Carnegie Hall debut, Moura has attracted legions of American fans and also solidified her reputation abroad.
Like American blues, Argentinean tango and Greek
rembetika, fado (literally, “fate”) began as a guttersnipe’s lament from the wrong side of town. Toughs, prostitutes and sailors would gather in Lisbon’s waterfront dives to drown their sorrows and listen to black-clad, shawled women singing songs constructed from uneven, African-inspired rhythms, rhyming couplets and
modinhas, a type of ballad. Despite their codified stance of majestic despair, female fadistas (there are also male interpreters, notably in the more academic Coimbra tradition) have ineffably sweet voices, flexible mezzos and altos capable of essaying vertiginous trills of ancient Moorish vintage. They are generally accompanied by guitars, including the harp-like native
cavaquinho and other plucked instruments, sometimes augmented by fiddles and woodwinds. Although gentrification has long since set in, the heart of the matter remains that men and women make plans and God laughs. But in fado, slings of fortune are countered with weary, bitterweet dignity and a sexy shrug. Lyrical and lushly melodic despite its somberly poetic, darkly sensual lyrics, the style has traveled well; numbering Brazilian
choro (“crying”) and Cabo Verdean
morna, made famous by Cesaria Evora, among its direct descendants.
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