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.
Tudo Esto e Fado
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Se eu sabia o que era o fado
Eu Disse que não sabia
Tu ficaste admirado
Sem saber o que dizia
Eu menti naquela hora
Disse-te que não sabia
Mas vou-te dizer agora
Almas vencidas
Noites perdidas
Sombras bizarras
Na Mouraria
Canta um rufia
Choram guitarras
Amor ciúme
Cinzas e lume
Dor e pecado
Tudo isto existe
Tudo isto é triste
Tudo isto é fado
Se queres ser o meu senhor
E teres-me sempre a teu lado
Nao me fales só de amor
Fala-me também do fado
E o fado é o meu castigo
Só nasceu pr'a me perder
O fado é tudo o que digo
Mais o que eu não sei dizer
Almas vencidas
Noites perdidas
Sombras bizarras
Na Mouraria
Canta um rufia
Choram guitarras
Amor ciúme
Cinzas e lume
Dor e pecado
Tudo isto existe
Tudo isto é triste
Tudo isto é fado
Amor ciúme
Cinzas e lume
Dor e pecado
Tudo isto existe
Tudo isto é triste
Tudo isto é fado
The song "Tudo Esto e Fado" by Amália Rodrigues is an ode to the Portuguese musical genre of Fado, which is known for its melancholic and introspective themes. In the first verse, the singer describes being asked about the meaning of Fado and initially denying knowledge of it. However, in the following verses, she explains that Fado is a combination of various tragic elements that seem to define the human experience.
The lyrics of the song touch on themes of lost souls, wasted nights, strange shadows, the pain of love, jealousy, ashes, flames, sin, and everything else that comprises the human condition. The Fado singer suggests that these concepts are all too familiar for anyone who has ever experienced life in its rawest form – they are the very essence of this musical genre. The song reaches a climax when the singer asserts that Fado is her personal punishment, and its sole purpose is to keep her down. However, she finds solace in the fact that Fado allows her to express everything she feels but cannot quite articulate.
Overall, "Tudo Esto e Fado" is a beautiful and poignant tribute to the Portuguese Fado, encapsulating the genre's essence in simple yet powerful lyrics.
Line by Line Meaning
Perguntaste-me outro dia
You asked me the other day
Se eu sabia o que era o fado
If I knew what fado was
Eu Disse que não sabia
I said I didn't know
Tu ficaste admirado
You were amazed
Sem saber o que dizia
Without knowing what I was saying
Eu menti naquela hora
I lied at that moment
Disse-te que não sabia
I told you I didn't know
Mas vou-te dizer agora
But I'll tell you now
Se queres ser o meu senhor
If you want to be my lord
E teres-me sempre a teu lado
And have me always by your side
Nao me fales só de amor
Don't just talk to me about love
Fala-me também do fado
Talk to me also about fado
E o fado é o meu castigo
And fado is my punishment
Só nasceu pr'a me perder
It was only born to lose me
O fado é tudo o que digo
Fado is everything I say
Mais o que eu não sei dizer
Plus what I don't know how to say
Almas vencidas
Defeated souls
Noites perdidas
Lost nights
Sombras bizarras
Bizarre shadows
Na Mouraria
In the Mouraria
Canta um rufia
A thug sings
Choram guitarras
Guitars cry
Amor ciúme
Love jealousy
Cinzas e lume
Ashes and fire
Dor e pecado
Pain and sin
Tudo isto existe
All of this exists
Tudo isto é triste
All of this is sad
Tudo isto é fado
All of this is fado
Contributed by Caden K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Y T
almas vencidas, noites perdidas, sombras bizarras ... tudo isto e fado. Muito belo
Melissa Cruz
Lindoooooo como a nossa Amália inesquecível 🙏👏
Cleones Gomes
Nossa língua portuguesa é uma delícia....
Maria Oliveira
Amei
Dayane Brass
Lindo!!!
Literatura Divina
Lindoooooooooooooooooooo emocionanteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee para meu amor
afbaiss afdera
todo isto e fado............... con el corazon musica que estremece los sentidos
Vito Taverna
adoro il fado di Amalia RodriguesIL CHIOSTRO DEL BRAMANTE
Spesso andavamo
al Chiostro del Bramante
a vedere le mostre d’arte.
Finivamo per perderci
di sala in sala
e ritrovarci
alla caffetteria.
Oggi sono tornato senza te,
da solo mi son preso il caffè,
irritato da un artista banale,
che attaccava i suoi quadri alle pareti.
Nelle sale del Chiostro
la mostra era un pomposo,
contemporaneo inno all’amore,
ch’oggi si chiama in tutto il mondo:
“Love”.
Stupivi che l’angusta scala
per salire ai piani
fosse coperta di nomi, frecce e cuori.
Salivi tra i “ti amo”, “I love”, “Ich liebe dich”
e ti seguiva il “fado” dell’Amalia Rodriguez.
Ti si invitava, infatti, a scrivere
sul muro delle scale, logorate dai passi,
un pensiero d’amore, un nome amato.
Come un adolescente
ho scritto dentro un cuore :
“Vito e Midori per sempre”.
Non ho messo la data di novembre,
perché per noi,lo sai,
non c’è inizio né fine.
(Vito Taverna)
tolga tüfek
...