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.
Havemos de Ir a Viana
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Em rompendo ao longe estrelas
Trocaremos nossas rosas
Para depois esquecê-las
Se o meu sangue náo me engana
Como engana a fantasia
Havemos de ir a Viana
Ó meu amor de algum dia
Havemos de ir a Viana
Se o meu sangue não me engana
Havemos de ir a Viana
Partamos de flor ao peito
Que o amor é como o vento
Quem pára perde-lhe o jeito
E morre a todo o momento
Se o meu sangue não me engana
Ciganos verdes ciganos
Deixai-me com esta crença
Os pecados têm vinte anos
Os remorsos têm oitenta
The lyrics of Amália Rodrigues's song Havemos de Ir a Viana speak about a journey between mysterious shadows and stars in the distance. The two lovers will exchange their roses and then forget them. The singer says that her blood does not deceive her and they will go to Viana. The destination remains uncertain, but the journey is happening. The lovers start their journey with a flower in their chest, aware that love is like the wind, fleeting and constantly moving. They must not stop, or they will lose their way and lose everything. The song ends with a reference to the green gypsies, who must let the singer have her beliefs. For her, the sins are only twenty years old, but the regrets last for eighty.
The song is characterized by a romantic atmosphere, enhanced by the beautiful voice of Amália Rodrigues, one of the most renowned Portuguese fado singers. Her interpretation adds intensity to the lyrics and creates a sense of longing and nostalgia. The melody is simple, yet powerful, and perfectly matches the lyrics, signaling the start of a journey towards an unknown destination but full of hope.
Line by Line Meaning
Entre sombras misteriosas
Amid mysterious shadows
Em rompendo ao longe estrelas
As stars break in the distance
Trocaremos nossas rosas
We will exchange our roses
Para depois esquecê-las
Only to forget them later
Se o meu sangue náo me engana
If my blood does not deceive me
Como engana a fantasia
As imagination often deceives
Havemos de ir a Viana
We shall go to Viana
Ó meu amor de algum dia
Oh, my love from some other day
Partamos de flor ao peito
Let us depart with flowers on our chests
Que o amor é como o vento
For love is like the wind
Quem pára perde-lhe o jeito
Whoever stops, loses it
E morre a todo o momento
And dies at every moment
Ciganos verdes ciganos
Green gypsies, green gypsies
Deixai-me com esta crença
Leave me with this belief
Os pecados têm vinte anos
Sins are twenty years old
Os remorsos têm oitenta
Remorse is eighty
Contributed by Lauren H. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Guven
Entre sombras misteriosas
Em rompendo ao longe estrelas
Trocaremos nossas rosas
Para depois esquecê-las
Se o meu sangue náo me engana
Como engana a fantasia
Havemos de ir a viana
Ó meu amor de algum dia
Ó meu amor de algum dia
Havemos de ir a viana
Se o meu sangue não me engana
Havemos de ir a viana
Partamos de flor ao peito
Que o amor é como o vento
Quem pára perde-lhe o jeito
E morre a todo o momento
Se o meu sangue não me engana
Como engana a fantasia
Havemos de ir a viana
Ó meu amor de algum dia
Ó meu amor de algum dia
Havemos de ir a viana
Se o meu sangue não me engana
Havemos de ir a viana
Ciganos verdes ciganos
Deixai-me com esta crença
Os pecados têm vinte anos
Os remorsos têm oitenta
SirLionH
We need to go to Viana
Between mysterious shadows
In breaking apart the stars
We exchange our roses
To then forget them
If my blood does not deceive me
Like how fantasy deceives
We need to go to Viana
Oh my love of some day
Oh my love of some day
We need to go to Viana
If my blood doesn't deceive me
We need to go to Viana
Let's start from flower to chest
Which the love is like the wind
Who stops loses it the way
And dies all at once
If my blood does not deceive me
Like how fantasy deceives
We need to go to Viana
Oh my love of some day
Oh my love of some day
We need to go to Viana
If my blood doesn't deceive me
We need to go to Viana
Gypsies green gypsies
Leave me with this belief
The sins have twenty years
The regrets have eighty
If my blood does not deceive me
Like how fantasy deceives
We need to go to Viana
Oh my love of some day
Oh my love of some day
We need to go to Viana
If my blood doesn't deceive me
We need to go to Viana
Amadeu Bizarro
Grande música dedicada a uma linda cidade, que tem tudo, monte,rio e mar, bem como uma paisagem maravilhosa.
Norberto Pereira
Grande Amalia e bela homenagem a linda cidade de Viana.
José Manuel Rocha
Simplesmente divino! Grande Amália, és imortal como a amor e a lingua portuguesa.
alentejaneiro
que canção maravilhosa ! É como uma corrente de ar fresco que leva os pesadêlos e o mal para longe. Grande Amália !
João luís Dias
Ali, na Estação de Viana Pediu lume e acendeu o instante Entregou no rio, ao fundo, o olhar e deixou possuir-se sem pressa… Voltou aos versos que lhe escorriam das mãos trémulas molhadas vertendo no chão gotas mornas de si e pediu ao silêncio que lhe declamasse a noite ali, na estação à espera da última partida… João Luís Dias 29/07/2010
Rui S. Sa
Viana uma das melhores cidades de Portugal Amália a melhor fadista de Portugal
Londondry dry
Rui S. Sa eu digo mesmo a melhor e mais linda..viana é Amor...
Luís Valença Pinto
Viana, linda, única e encantadora Viana. Terra das minhas raízes e do meu coração!
dst35bwl
She transcends language. She, Edith Piaf, and Billie Holliday give meaning to the word "Soul"
john doe
Love that you made those musical connections, most people would not have done so