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.
Flor Do Verde Pinho
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Verde catedral marinha
E cuja reza caminha
Pelas roboantes naves.
Ai flores do verde pinho
Dizei que novas sabedes
Da minha alma cujas sedes
Revejo-te e venho exangue,
Acolhe-me com piedade
Longo jardim da saudade
Que me puseste no sangue.
Ai flores do verde ramo
Dizei que novas sabedes
Da minha alma cujas sedes
M'alongaram do que eu amo.
A tua alma em mim existe
E anda no aroma das flores
Que te falam dos amores
De tudo o que é lindo e triste.
A tua alma com carinho
Eu guardo-a e deito-a a cantar
Das flores do verde pinho
Àquelas ondas do mar.
Ai flores do verde ramo
Dizei que novas sabedes
Da minha alma cujas sedes
M'alongaram do que eu amo.
These lyrics are from the song "Flor Do Verde Pinho" by Amália Rodrigues. The song is about the singer's memories and longing for a place that is like a cathedral made of green pine trees. She calls it her garden of longing, a place where the prayers walk through the resonant ships. She speaks to the flowers of the green pine tree, asking them what news do they have about her soul, which has lost its way. She feels weak and comes to the garden of longing for mercy. The garden is so deeply imprinted in her memory that it runs in her blood. She wonders if the flowers have any news about her soul, which is estranged from the one she loves.
The singer's soul is connected to the place where the green pine trees grow, and she feels the aroma of the flowers that remind her of the beautiful and sad memories of love. She cherishes the memory of the garden with great warmth, which she expresses by singing. The song's mood is melancholic, and it expresses the singer's longing for a place that is close to her heart.
Line by Line Meaning
É meu jardim de saudades
This is my garden of memories
Verde catedral marinha
Green cathedral of the sea
E cuja reza caminha
Where the prayers roam
Pelas roboantes naves.
Amidst the echoing waves
Ai flores do verde pinho
Oh flowers of the green pine
Dizei que novas sabedes
Tell me what news you bring
Da minha alma cujas sedes
Of my soul, which yearns
M'a perderam no caminho.
Lost along the way
Revejo-te e venho exangue,
I see you again and come weary
Acolhe-me com piedade
Receive me with compassion
Longo jardim da saudade
Long garden of nostalgia
Que me puseste no sangue.
That runs through my veins
Ai flores do verde ramo
Oh flowers of the green branch
Dizei que novas sabedes
Tell me what news you bring
Da minha alma cujas sedes
Of my soul, which yearns
M'alongaram do que eu amo.
Moved me away from what I love
A tua alma em mim existe
Your soul exists inside of me
E anda no aroma das flores
And wanders in the scent of flowers
Que te falam dos amores
That speak to you of love
De tudo o que é lindo e triste.
Of all that is beautiful and sad
A tua alma com carinho
I cherish your soul
Eu guardo-a e deito-a a cantar
I keep it and sing to it
Das flores do verde pinho
Of the flowers of the green pine
Àquelas ondas do mar.
To the waves of the sea
Ai flores do verde ramo
Oh flowers of the green branch
Dizei que novas sabedes
Tell me what news you bring
Da minha alma cujas sedes
Of my soul, which yearns
M'alongaram do que eu amo.
Moved me away from what I love
Contributed by Kayla G. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Alicia Diaz
Ai flores do coração da nossa AMÁLIA 🌻❤️🇵🇹..ainda estão a perfumar..a terra e o céu português.. DITOSA PÁTRIA..que TAL FILHA TEM..
Bruno Oliveira
Como é bom conhecer Portugal!
Cristina Dauria
/ *FANTASTICOOOOO......VIDEO..!!! * /
Alicia Diaz
Cristina Dauria amiga Cristina....usted siempre tan expresiva.sino le parece mal la sugerencia.trate de profundizar en quien era y quien es AMÁLIA 🌻❤️🇵🇹..un mundo de sorpresas la espera..y aprenda Português...no se arrepentirá.. AMÁLIA Merece todo
Cecilia Nora Luis
Nao ah vos coma da amalia e que belo tema para recordar saudades