In the media (English)

Words, instruments play second fiddle to remarkable voice

Portuguese singer Cristina Branco regards herself as a storyteller. But she needed no words to communicate the deep passions of fado, Portuguese songs of fate, Friday night at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

An enchantress, she drew listeners into her world with the sheer beauty of her remarkable voice, a musical instrument that cuts to the heart, pours salt on the wound and then soothes like a healing balm. Although she used low-level amplification, she signaled the sound engineer to turn it down, and she could have done without the microphone.

So colorful and expressive was her vocal timbre that she did not need instrumental accompaniment either. But she got superb harmonic support from her husband, Portuguese guitarist Custodio Castelo. His accompaniments and compositions, played in collaboration with acoustic guitarist Alexandre Silva and bass guitarist Miguel Caravalhinho, were fascinating enough to stand on their own. When the three instrumentalists played an interlude, they won a standing ovation from the guitar aficionados in the crowd.

Because Branco has been compared to the legendary Amalia Rodrigues, it was appropriate that she offered a song written by the Queen of Fado and dedicated to all the Marias in the world - including the Virgin. Branco also sang several selections from her newest recording, "corpo iluminado" (illuminated body), including a traditional lyric about a beloved sailor on the open sea. She introduced a fado that blended Afro-Brazilian elements of Cape Verde morna, and she sang one song of sadness that she insisted was not sad.

Speaking briefly between numbers and inviting the audience to share her journey across the seven seas and into Portuguese history, she held the audience's attention not only with her voice but also with her personality and presence. Dramatically lighted and dressed in black (a different gown for each of two sets), she sometimes turned away from the listeners and directed her songs to the guitarists.

The players were with her through every dynamic nuance and turn of phrase. When they performed introductions and interludes, they took considerable freedom with rhythm, the aspect of fado that is generally far less interesting than the beautiful melodies and expressive harmonies. In the hands of these gifted musicians, however, the repetitive oom-pahs were transformed into life-giving heartbeats.

The program, presented as part of the museum's Viva! Festival of Performing Arts, lasted less than 90 minutes without intermission, and the audience wanted more. Although Branco said she had not planned an encore, she came up with one, and she persuaded members of the charmed audience to sing along in a chorus of wordless syllables before she smiled sweetly, waved goodbye and said, "Thank you, thank you, obrigado."

Fast Forward: Cristina Branco

Fado, sometimes called the Portuguese blues, is a centuries-old folk style traditionally used to express saudade—nostalgic melancholy. It's an ideal vehicle for the kind of voice that makes people weep into their vodka and tonics, and Portugal's eminent fado chanteuse, Cristina Branco, 28, has such a voice.

On her recordings and in concert, her low, tremulous instrument is backed by a band consisting of a 12-string Portuguese guitar and a Spanish guitar, the traditional fado instruments, and a bass guitar. The 12-string guitarist, Custodio Castelo, is Branco's husband as well as her chief collaborator in songwriting. She presents him with a poem she likes, usually Portuguese, and the two of them craft it into song.

High-minded as fado may be in Branco's hands, the style had the rotten luck to be endorsed by the dictators who ruled Portugal for almost 50 years. For many Portuguese, the genre carried the odor of fascism long after a 1974 revolution restored democracy.

"It took 20 years for [fado] to grow up again, to be civilized music again," says Branco. Perhaps that accounts for the sense that even when she sings of desolation, Branco's delivery seems animated by the pleasure of recovering something lost. For her listeners, the pleasure lies in hearing a venerable art form lifted to new heights.

BY BENJAMIN NUGENT, Time.com, february 2002

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