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.
Com Que Voz
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
De meu bem desenganado
Mas chorar não se estima neste estado
Aonde suspirar nunca aproveitou
Pois se mudou em tristeza a alegria do passado
A alegria do passado
De tanto mal, a causa é amor puro
Devido a quem de mim tenho ausente
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
De meu bem desenganado, desenganado
"Com Que Voz" is a song by Amália Rodrigues about heartbreak and the pain that comes with a lost love. The song opens with the singer questioning how they can possibly sing about their "triste fado," or sad fate, that has buried them in such a deep passion. They hope that the pain they feel will not be the end of them, despite the despair they are experiencing. The singer then acknowledges that crying and sighing have not brought them any relief in their current state. They choose to live in their sadness because their past joy has now become just a memory. The cause of the singer's unhappiness is their pure love for one who is absent and for whom they would risk everything.
The lyrics of "Com Que Voz" evoke a deep sense of heartbreak and pain. The song captures the despair that comes with being separated from a loved one, especially one's true love. The lyrics describe the ways in which love can bring both happiness and heartbreak, causing the singer to question their future and wonder if there is any hope for them. Amália Rodrigues's emotive voice and the melancholic melody of the song further emphasize the sadness and despair felt by the singer.
Line by Line Meaning
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
With what voice shall I cry out my sad fate?
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
That buried me in such a harsh passion
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
May the pain that time left me not be mortal
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
That time left me feeling disillusioned about my beloved
De meu bem desenganado
About my beloved, disillusioned
Mas chorar não se estima neste estado
But in this state, crying is not considered honorable
Aonde suspirar nunca aproveitou
Where sighing never brought any benefit
Triste quero viver, pois se mudou em tristeza
I want to live in sadness, for the joy of the past has turned to sorrow
Pois se mudou em tristeza a alegria do passado
For the joy of the past has turned to sorrow
De tanto mal, a causa é amor puro
The cause of so much pain is pure love
Devido a quem de mim tenho ausente
Due to the one who is absent from me
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
For whom I risk my life and possessions
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
With what voice shall I cry out my sad fate?
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
That buried me in such a harsh passion
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
May the pain that time left me not be mortal
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
That time left me feeling disillusioned about my beloved
De meu bem desenganado, desenganado
About my beloved, disillusioned, disillusioned
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Alain Oulman
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Sonia Sb
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
De meu bem desenganado
Mas chorar não se estima neste estado
Aonde suspirar nunca aproveitou
Triste quero viver, pois se mudou em tristeza
Pois se mudou em tristeza a alegria do passado
A alegria do passado
De tanto mal, a causa é amor puro
Devido a quem de mim tenho ausente
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
De meu bem desenganado, desenganado
Pedro Lopez
Digam-me em que outra língua do universo o nosso coração é assim arrebatado? Digam-me lá ainda, que outra voz neste planeta assim cantou como a Dona Amália? Pois, eu por mim, ninguém cantou as coisas mais profundas da lama de um povo como a senhora Dona Amália. Deverá estar em algum lugar das estrelas encantando o céu com sua voz e seu canto. Obrigado sempre Dona Amália
Natalia Moura
Este poema de Camões ficou quatro séculos á espera de Amália. E, claro, valeu a pena!
Davide Candeias
Valeu mesmo
Adelina Pinto de Sa
Vale sempre a pena quando a alma nao é pequena!!!!!!!
Sonia Sb
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
De meu bem desenganado
Mas chorar não se estima neste estado
Aonde suspirar nunca aproveitou
Triste quero viver, pois se mudou em tristeza
Pois se mudou em tristeza a alegria do passado
A alegria do passado
De tanto mal, a causa é amor puro
Devido a quem de mim tenho ausente
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
Por quem a vida e bens dele aventuro
Com que voz chorarei meu triste fado
Que em tão dura paixão me sepultou
Que mor não seja a dor que me deixou o tempo
Que me deixou o tempo de meu bem desenganado
De meu bem desenganado, desenganado
Margarida Bico
Pois eu ainda vou mais longe... A língua portuguesa esteve 800 anos à espera que alguém a cantasse assim! Como bela adormecida...
Ivo Sequeira
O meu coração ri e chora com a voz DIVINA desta senhora.
Lucas Rodrigo Dias
Chorar esse tão belo fado como ela o chora. A língua esperou sua rainha...
Cesar Faria
Que comentário tão lindo, e consequente..... Enorme....
Maria de Fátima Santos Costa Barata
Amalia, para lá da dimensão humana, um génio uma Deusa com uma Voz que nos envolve numa onda de Emoção e Sentimento, Entoa e Sublinha as Palavras com uma Força Poética, com uma Cadência, com uns Tempos e Pausas, é Sublime a Força e a Forma Densa e Dramática, como a sua Voz Veste e dá Vida ao Poema.
Verdadeira de