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.
Maldição
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Manda em nós, meu coração
Um do outro assim perdidos?
Somos dois gritos calados
Dois fados desencontrados
Dois amantes desunidos
Somos dois gritos calados
Dois amantes desunidos
Por ti sofro e vou morrendo
Não te encontro, nem te entendo
Amo e odeio sem razão
Coração quando te cansas?
Das nossas mortas esperanças
Quando páras coração?
Coração quando te cansas?
Das nossas mortas esperanças
Quando páras coração?
Nesta luta, nesta agonia
Canto e choro de alegria
Sou feliz e desgraçada
Que sina tua, meu peito
Que nunca estás satisfeito
Que dás tudo e não tens nada!
Que sina tua, meu peito
Que nunca estás satisfeito
Que dás tudo e não tens nada!
Ai, gelada solidão
Que tu me dás coração
Não há vida nem há morte
Ai, lucidez desatino
De ler no próprio destino
Sem poder mudar-lhe a sorte
Ai, lucidez desatino
De ler no próprio destino
Sem poder mudar-lhe a sorte
The song "Maldição" by Amália Rodrigues explores the idea of fate and curse in a relationship. The song begins by questioning the curse or destiny that makes two people lost in each other. The singer reflects on the agony of being two silenced screams, two separate fates, and two lovers who are not united. The chorus repeats the first two lines, emphasizing the idea that the curse or destiny is in control of their hearts.
The following verse depicts the struggle and pain of the singer's infatuation with the other person. The singer cannot understand or find the person they love, and their emotions fluctuate between love and hate. They question when their heart will stop carrying the burden of dead hopes. In the chorus, again, the singer repeats the question to their heart, asking when it will tire of carrying the weight of their insignificant dreams.
The final verse talks about the singer's happiness and misery in the relationship. They feel content and joyful amid their suffering. The singer addresses fate, questioning the destiny of their chest, which is never satisfied, leaving them with nothing. The ultimate lines express the agony of knowing and accepting fate's cruel judgment while being unable to change it. The song's overall tone is melancholic, depicting the complexities of human emotions and the implications of being subject to fate.
Line by Line Meaning
Que destino ou maldição
What fate or curse controls us, my heart
Manda em nós, meu coração
Rules over us, my heart
Um do outro assim perdidos?
Lost from each other like this?
Somos dois gritos calados
We are two silent screams
Dois fados desencontrados
Two destinies that do not meet
Dois amantes desunidos
Two lovers separated
Por ti sofro e vou morrendo
I suffer and am dying for you
Não te encontro, nem te entendo
I cannot find you, nor understand you
Amo e odeio sem razão
I love and hate without reason
Coração quando te cansas?
Heart, when will you tire?
Das nossas mortas esperanças
From our dead hopes
Quando páras coração?
When will you stop, heart?
Nesta luta, nesta agonia
In this struggle, in this agony
Canto e choro de alegria
I sing and cry with joy
Sou feliz e desgraçada
I am happy and wretched
Que sina tua, meu peito
What fate of yours, my heart
Que nunca estás satisfeito
That you are never satisfied
Que dás tudo e não tens nada!
That you give everything and have nothing!
Ai, gelada solidão
Oh, frozen solitude
Que tu me dás coração
That you give me, heart
Não há vida nem há morte
There is no life nor death
Ai, lucidez desatino
Oh, insanity of clarity
De ler no próprio destino
Reading one's own destiny
Sem poder mudar-lhe a sorte
Without being able to change its fate
Contributed by Chase C. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Miau M
Lyrics
What destiny, or curse
Controls us, my heart?
So lost from one another
We are two silent cries,
Two divergent fates,
Two divided lovers.
For you I suffer and I will die,
I neither find nor understand you,
I love and hate without reason:
Heart, when will you tire
Of our dead hopes,
When will you stop, heart?
In this struggle, this agony,
I sing and cry with joy
I am ecstatic and wretched.
What fate is yours, my heart,
Who is never satisfied,
Who gives it all, and has nothing.
In the frozen solitude,
Which you bestow upon me, my heart,
There is neither life nor death:
It is clarity, foolishness,
To read one’s own destiny
Without being able to alter one’s fate.
My Portuguese is still basic, so if I misunderstood anything, please let me know and I will fix it.
armandoacgarcia
Homenagem à Rainha do
Fado - Amália Rodrigues
Amália, do outro lado,
Junto do Homem da cruz
Pediu pra cantar um fado
Em homenagem a Jesus
Deus consentiu no pedido
E foi ouvi-la cantar
Ficou muito arrependido,
Tê-la mandado chamar
Disse ao anjo, francamente
Que vacilo foi o teu
Amália, eternamente
Em Portugal tinha o céu !
É tão grande a perfeição
Da cantora portuguesa
Os anjos não conseguirão
Imitá-la, com certeza
Ao povo das caravelas
Que tantas graças lhe dei
Dei-lhe Amália como estrela
Por descuido, lha tirei !
São Paulo, 29/04/2013 (data da criação)
Armando A. C. Garcia
Visite meus blogs:
http://brisadapoesia.blogspot.com
http://preludiodesonetos.blogspot.com
http://criancaspoesias.blogspot.com
Direitos autorais registrados
Mantenha a autoria do poema
Fred Mac
Chega a ser um prazer que dói. Essa voz, letra e emoção. Um dia vou a Lisboa.
Abraços
Humberto Almeida
A descrição que me faltava e vc traduziu☺️
Germina Cristovão Real
Arrepia esta voz, transpira sentimentos e nostalgia! Unica, de cortar a respiraçao! ADORO
Antero Antunes
Celidion
Miguel Sutil
Si hay una voz que puede penetrar tu melancolía y revolverla hasta elevarla a un estrato de fe en ...algo, esa es la voz de Amália!
António José Frade da Costa
Um dos maiores exitos,que a voz de Portugal (Amália) nos deixou.
Teofilo Serpa
Quando a alma tem voz ....Amalia!!!
Rui Jorge
Somos dois gritos calados,
Dois fados desencontrados,
Dois amantes desunidos.QUE LINDO”…
mariaemilia matoscordeiro
Concordo inteiramente. São três versos lindos com um sentido arrepiante.
Auziria Cartucho
Rui Jorge lindo fado que eu adoro