From the Portuguese word for “fate,” fado expresses the Portuguese concept of “saudade” - a deep yearning for the past, failed loves, and happier days. Known to legions of her fans as the Queen of Fado, Rodrigues herself was, by her own estimation, ideally qualified to bring fado to mournful life. “I have so much sadness in me,” she said. “I am a pessimist, a nihilist. Everything that fado demands in a singer I have in me.”
Fado was born in the taverns and brothels lining Lisbon’s waterfront. Traditionally, songs of lost love, mourning, and fatalism were accompanied by Portuguese 12-string guitars and woodwinds. Dismessed at first as popular, low culture, like the blues of the United States, the tango of Argentina, and the flamenco of Spain, fado was born in poverty, out of desperation, and only gradually came to be appreciated for it's musical ingenuity, its poetry and art.
Amália was born in 1920, in Lisbon, one of ten brothers and sisters. When she was one, her mother abandoned her to be brought up by her grand-mother. As a child, she had to sell produce on the street and work as a seamstress to help her family pay its bills. Her childhood was described as an unhappy one, and naturally drew her to the mournful music of fado, but she herself has said that she was conscious of being sad as a child, it was just part of who she was and part of the culture.
"For me, fado is destiny, it’s life. I don’t sing fado...it sings in me,” She said. “The Portuguese know life is absurd because death follows, I myself have always been full of sad thoughts.”
She began singing professionally in Lisbon nightclubs, when she was 19, with her sister Celeste at the upscale Lisbon nightclub Retiro da Severa. Only a year later, she was singing to sold-out crowds in nightclubs all over Lisbon. In keeping with the fado tradition, Rodrigues performed in black mourning clothes. She typically sang with her head thrown back, her expression a picture of anguish.
In 1944, she was introduced to audiences in Brazil when she performed at the Copa-cabana Casino and made her first recordings in Rio de Janeiro, which began an international career, which flourished after World War II. She began to tour around the world, performing in Spain, France, and the United Kingdom, in addition to Brazil. She later added the United States, Japan, Mexico, and the Soviet Union to her tours.
In order to boost her live performing career, Rod-rigues’s manager, José de Melo, advised her not to make any more recordings. She stayed out of the recording studio until 1951, when she began to record for the Melodia label. In 1952, she moved to the Val-entium de Carvalho label.
In 1955, Rodrigues became internationally popular with a recording of the song “Coimbra,” recorded during a concert at the Olympia Theater in Paris. The song was known to English speakers as “April in Portugal.” Rodrigues’s popularity outlasted even that of her preferred form itself. Even as fado began to wane in popularity in the 1960s, Rodrigues continued to perform on stage and in feature films, and recorded nearly 170 albums. Nevertheless, Rodrigues suffered from stage fright throughout her career. “Before a concert my pulse is 48,” she was quoted as saying, “it rises to 120 when I go on stage.”
In 1974, Portugal’s government, a right-wing dictatorship, fell in a bloodless coup, and the new government accused Rodrigues of collaboration with the deposed dictatorship and of opposing the new government. She denied the accusations, saying, “I always sang fado without thinking of politics. I never had the support any government.” Many on the left saw fado as tainted, even as the official voice of Catholic fascism. Just as her voice began to wane, so did her domestic popularity. She fought depression partly by touring abroad, where audiences remained spellbound by her presence.The accusations took their toll on the singer, and she entered a hospital to be treated for depression. She vindicated herself, however, by recording a version of “Grandola Vila Morena,” a patriotic song celebrating the revolution of 1974. She was subsequently awarded the Portuguese government’s highest honor, the Grand Cross of the Order of Santiago.
Rodrigues’s touring career lasted well into her seventies, and she stopped touring only when heart surgery forced her to slow down. She put on her last public appearance at the opening of the Lisbon Expo in 1998. Her last world tour had been in 1990, during which she had played at Town Hall in New York City.
Also known to her fans simply as Amália. Rodrigues died in bed at her home in Lisbon in 1999. She was 79 years old and had previously been the victim of two heart attacks. On hearing of her death, the prime minister of Portugal, Antonio Guterres, declared three days of national mourning before her funeral and said that his country had lost “the voice of the Portuguese soul.” The funeral was attended by Guterres and Portugal’s president, Jorge Sampaio.
The period of mourning and subsequent funeral came just before Portugal’s general elections, and the candidates had to curtail their campaigning. The funeral service was held at the Estrela cathedral in Lisbon and was accompanied by musicians playing 12-string guitars. Spectators numbering in the tens of thousands lined the streets as Rodrigues’s coffin, draped in the Portuguese flag, was carried to its final resting place, the Prazeres cemetery.
