Born in Lisbon, Portugal, official documents have her date of birth as the 23rd July, but Rodrigues always said her birthday was the 1st July 1920. She was born in the rua Martim Vaz (Martim Vaz Street), freguesia of Pena, Lisbon. Her father was a trumpet player and cobbler from Fundão who returned there when Amália was just over a year old, leaving her to live in Lisbon with her maternal grandmother in a deeply Catholic environment until she was fourteen, when her parents returned to the capital and she moved back in with them.
She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" ("Queen of Fado"), and was most influential in popularising fado worldwide. She was unquestionably the most important figure in the genre’s development, by virtue of an innate interpretive talent carefully nurtured throughout a forty-year recording and stage career. Rodrigues' performances and choice of repertoire pushed fado’s boundaries and helped redefine it and reconfigure it for her and subsequent generations. In effect, Rodrigues wrote the rulebook on what fado could be and on how a female singer - or fadista - should perform it, to the extent that she remains an unsurpassable model and an unending source of repertoire for all those who came afterwards.
After a few years of amateur performances, Rodrigues’ first professional engagement in a fado venue took place in 1939, and she quickly became a regular guest star in stage revues. There she met Frederico Valério, a classically-trained composer who, recognising the potential in such a voice, wrote expansive melodies custom-designed for Rodrigues’ voice, breaking the rules of fado by adding orchestral accompaniment.
Her Portuguese popularity began to extend abroad with trips to Spain, a lengthy stay in Brazil (where, in 1945, she made her first recordings on Brazilian label Continental) and Paris (in 1949). In 1950, while performing at the Marshall Plan international benefit shows, she introduced "April in Portugal" to international audiences (under its original title "Coimbra"). In the early fifties, the patronage of the acclaimed Portuguese poet David Mourão-Ferreira marked the beginning of a new phase; Rodrigues sang many of the country's greatest poets, and some wrote lyrics specifically for her.
In 1954, Rodrigues' international career skyrocketed through her presence in Henri Verneuil’s film The Lovers of Lisbon, where she had a supporting role and performed on-screen. By the late 1950s the USA, England, and France had become her major international markets (Japan and Italy followed in the 1970s); in France especially, her popularity rivalled her Portuguese success, and she graduated to headliner at the prestigious Olympia theatre within a matter of months. Over the years, she performed nearly all over the world, going as far as the Soviet Union and Israel.
At the end of the 1950s, Rodrigues took a year off. She returned in 1962 with a richer voice, concentrating on recording and performing live at a slower pace. Her comeback album, 1962's Amália Rodrigues, was her first collaboration with French composer Alain Oulman, her main songwriter and musical producer throughout the decade. As Valério had before him, Oulman wrote melodies for her that transcended the conventions of fado. Rodrigues did not shy away from controversy: her performance in Carlos Vilardebó’s 1964 arthouse film The Enchanted Islands was better received than the film, based on a short story by Herman Melville, and her 1965 recording of poems by 16th century poet Luís de Camões generated acres of newspaper polemics. Yet her popularity remained untouched. Her 1968 single "Vou Dar de Beber à Dor" broke all sales records, and her 1970 album Com que Voz, considered by many her definitive recording, won a number of international awards.
During the 1970s, Rodrigues concentrated on live work, and embarked upon a heavy schedule of worldwide concert performances. During the frenetic period after the 25th April 1974 she was falsely accused of being a covert agent of the PIDE, causing some trauma to her public life and career. (In fact, during the Salazar years, Rodrigues had been an occasional financial supporter of some communists in need.) Her return to the recording studio in 1977 with Cantigas numa Língua Antiga was received as a triumph. The 1980s and 1990s brought her enthronement as a living legend. Her last all-new studio recording, Lágrima, was released in 1983. It was followed by a series of previously lost or unreleased recordings, and the smash success of two greatest hits collections that sold over 200,000 copies combined.
Despite a series of illnesses involving her voice, Rodrigues continued recording as late as 1990. She eventually retreated from public performance, although her career gained in stature with an official biography by historian and journalist Vítor Pavão dos Santos, and a five-hour television series documenting her fifty-year career, featuring rare archival footage (later distilled into the ninety-minute film documentary, The Art of Amália). Its director, Bruno de Almeida, has also produced Amália, Live in New York City (a concert film of her 1990 performance at New York City Hall).
Rodrigues died on the 6th October 1999 at the age of seventy-nine in her home in Lisbon. Portugal's government promptly declared a period of national mourning. Her house (in Rua de São Bento) is now a museum. She is now buried at the National Pantheon alongside other Portuguese notables.
1946.
Coimbra
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
De sonho e tradição
O lente é uma canção
E a lua a faculdade
O livro é uma mulher
Só passa quem souber
E aprende-se a dizer saudade
Ainda és capital
Do amor em Portugal, ainda
Coimbra onde uma vez
Com lágrimas se fez
A história dessa Inês tão linda
Coimbra das canções
Coimbra que nos põe
Os nossos corações, à luz
Coimbra dos doutores
Pra nós os seus cantores
A fonte dos amores és tu
Coimbra é uma lição
De sonho e tradição
O lente é uma canção
E a lua a faculdade
O livro é uma mulher
Só passa quem souber
E aprende-se a dizer saudade
O livro é uma mulher
Só passa quem souber
E aprende-se a dizer saudade
"Coimbra" is a song that pays tribute to the city of Coimbra in Portugal. The lyrics depict Coimbra as a place of dreams and tradition. The first verse relates the city to a school, with the professors being like songs and the moon symbolizing the university. The second verse highlights the city's historical significance, referencing the tragic tale of Inês de Castro, who fell in love with King Pedro and was eventually murdered. The third and final verse highlights the city's culture and its poets, with the city being referred to as the "fountain of love."
The chorus reiterates the importance of Coimbra as a place of learning, with books being likened to women and only those who understand the language of the city can truly appreciate it. The repeated phrase "só passa quem souber" (only those who know can pass) reinforces the idea that Coimbra is a place that requires understanding and knowledge to truly appreciate it.
Line by Line Meaning
Coimbra é uma lição
Coimbra is a lesson in life
De sonho e tradição
Full of dreams and tradition
O lente é uma canção
The professor is a song
E a lua a faculdade
And the moon is the university
O livro é uma mulher
The book is a woman
Só passa quem souber
Only those who know, get by
E aprende-se a dizer saudade
And one learns to say longing
Coimbra do choupal
Coimbra of the choupal
Ainda és capital
You are still the capital
Do amor em Portugal, ainda
Of love in Portugal, still
Coimbra onde uma vez
Coimbra where once
Com lágrimas se fez
With tears, was made
A história dessa Inês tão linda
The story of that beautiful Ines
Coimbra das canções
Coimbra of songs
Coimbra que nos põe
Coimbra that fills us
Os nossos corações, à luz
Our hearts, with light
Coimbra dos doutores
Coimbra of the doctors
Pra nós os seus cantores
For us, its singers
A fonte dos amores és tu
The source of love is you
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Jose Maria Galhardo, Raul Ferrao
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@michaello434
sou chines mas fui estudante da faculdade de letres de universidade de coimbra, no ano 1984, estive la e tirei o curso de portugues elementar, estudei cantar fado de Amalia..., coimbra e muito bonita, pessoas la e muito simpaticas, era eu jovem naquela altura e consegui arranjar muitos amigos , foram alunos tambem...., gostava de ir ao theatro Gil Vicente e praca de republica..., na esplandada conversamos com toda alegria..., isto foi um tempo de muito feliz na minha vida....., eu visitei coimbra outra vez em 2014..., passaram ja 30 anos....., estou em Hong Kong agora, oxala posso voltar a visitar esta cidade bela outra vez depois de acabar o virus corona ...
@nenegeorgia6179
Parabens meu amigo 👍👍👍 👏👏👏👏👏👏
@tombarac8253
Now you can visit it again❤
@morenoricmelo
Que lindo depoimento. Adorei...sei que é ingênuo pensar assim, mas o mundo não deveria ter fronteiras. Somos todos um, diverso, plural, mas um só povo. Estou aqui porque em breve conhecerei esta cidade. Sou do Brasil.
@melhoridade3027
Nasci em Portugal mas vim para o Brasil com apenas seis anos. Lá se vão sessenta e três anos! Meu pai amava ouvir Amália Rodrigues
@iracimanfrin
Morro de saudades desta terra linda que é Portugal, este lindo Fado na voz de Amália Rodrigues é eterno ❤, abraços a tds os Portugueses espalhados neste vasto mundo ! ❤
@ashuro7770
Sou brasileiro, nasci no Brasil. Mas sinto muito orgulho por ter sangue português correndo nas minhas veias. Tenho portugueses na família, tanto na parte de mãe quanto na parte de pai. Eu simplesmente amo Portugal, tanto quanto o Brasil.
@marcelopalmieri5628
Simplesmente uma das coisas mais magníficas que a humanidade fez.
Viva a língua Portuguesa!!!
Viva Amália Rodrigues!!!
Sou brasileiro e viva a nossa pátria mãe Portugal!!!!
@emiliam.7441
The Brazilians seem to have less resentment toward Portugal than at least some Americans have toward Britain. Isn't there an organization for Portuguese-speaking countries?
@robertomendes529
A nossa língua portuguesa é tão bela! Deus, salve nossa eterna pátria mãe! 🇵🇹🇧🇷