I enjoyed everything about my trip to Lisbon last week, except for my bag arriving a day and a half after me. Thanks American Airlines. But my favorite interlude was probably the better part of a day I spent at Amália Coração Independente, a 10-years-after-her-death restrospective on the life and impact of the great fadista Amália Rodrigues.
One thing really cool about the exhibit was the plethora of film clips it includes of Amália singing at various ages and in contexts including concerts, television, film and informally. A clip from the Coke Time variety show with Eddie Fisher and Don Ameche, in which she sings Coimbra (April in Portugal) and gets a bottle of Coke at the end (the boys bring one out for all of them), made me chuckle. A clip of her singing along impromptu with her mother, the two it looks like just sitting in the back yard, was gripping.
Here are a different series of clips I found in a Web review of the exhibit.
5 comments:
Did you go to Amalia's house?
After her death and according to her will, the house was left exactly as it was when she died in October 1999. It's an elegant town house filled with her awards, portraits, furniture and aura... it's impossible to go there and not feel her presence.
Hi Sandro, yes, I went to her house and I agree, impossible to to feel her presence there. I loved the photo of her kissing a parrot.
Hi! Did you see the parrot Chico? He's at the entrance where one can buy tickets to visit her house and souvenirs. :)
Hi have a lot of Amalia mp3 albums... from folk to fado, from a live performance in Rome to her Lisbon fado club days... if you're missing one I can upload it for you... btw, do you have portuguese relatives (or portuguese blood)... just wondering because I find it lovely that you enjoy Amalia so much.
Hi Sandro. No Portuguese relatives that I know of. I became aware of fado and Amalia in reading about the great jazz saxophonist Don Byas, who played with Amalia during his long residence in Europe.
Then, Mariza performed at the university where I work and I decided to buy a ticket and attend. I was smitten by the music (not to mention by Mariza) and started to collect and read about it. This, of course, naturally led me to a deep appreciation of Amalia.
Hi Greg! I think it's wonderful when someone falls for a musical genre like that... by pure magic, without any publicity+media manipulation stuff behind it.
Have you heard about "The Art of Amalia"? It's a 5 hour documentary about her career... there's a shorter version on YouTube with subtitles,
You can find it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z9lkr-imtQ
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