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The Resilient Broken Heart
Last night, I heard Fado diva Mariza perform here at the Florida International Festival. She took my breath away. Aside from her musicality and her singing skills - which are nothing short of awe-inspiring - her charming, mysterious, warm, and gracious persona shines from the stage like a Mediterranean sun.
One of the most striking features of her performance is how Mariza seems to physically transform depending on the music she’s singing. The sultry rage that characterizes so much fado is there, for sure. But with so many fado artists, the music seems steeped in the desperate, lonely cries of someone cornered by humiliation and shame. Mariza’s fado seems so much richer, and so multi-faceted.
Her fado transcends victimness. There’s spring steel in her backbone. Her fado has its jaw set. “I’m already past this. I’m just telling you a story.� That there can be so much strength in sorrow surprised me, especially from such a beautifully sweet and warm face as she gives to her audiences.
Mariza is heart-breakingly beautiful to watch. When she dances - which is almost all the time - her body reveals a thousand hinges. Everything moves - and with a complexity and fluidity to charm a thousand cobras.
As beautiful as she is, as skilled a performer as she is, and as intensely emotional as her music is, I would expect her to trade on her sexuality. Well, the music may steam, but she doesn’t.
Though she runs the gamut from girlish playfulness to used-up middle age, dignity runs through her like a vein of gold through granite. Ironically, this drives her fado’s point home with strength that is almost cruel in its concentration.
Mariza’s music reminds us that heartbreak and evil can worm its way into anyone’s life. So often, “blues stories� are about people whose flaws and frailties pre-ordain their painful ends. But what about those whose lives are nothing but one right move, one right choice after another? Mariza’s music has a lesson for you: Virtue, discipline, and good sense are no shield from pain or tragedy. But she also reminds the frail and flawed of us that all things pass, even heartbreak.
Posted on July 20, 2007 10:28 AM | Permalink
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Comments
What beautifully chosen words to describe exactly what Mariza is and can do for those of us who adore and respect her.
Thank you!