Portugal- 4/13- 4/20/2016

Castelo de Sao Jorge

Visit continuation

Baixa historic downtown

Sr. Fado de Alfama

Sr. Fado de Alfama- 4/14/2016

Fado is traditional folk music characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sentiment of resignation, fatefulness and melancholia. The music includes instruments like guitars and mandolins with one Fadista singing poetic lyrics related to darker elements of love, death and sadness. The music may, however, occasionally include some humor. 

The word "fado" comes from the Latin word "fatum" meaning fate. Fado appeared during the early 19th century in Lisbon, and is believed to have its origins in the port districts like Alfama, Mouraria and Bairro Alto.

CD's of Ana Marina, Bruno Igrejas, and Tony Proenca on a window display and can be purchased - All three will perform tonight.

 

Here is Ana Marina as the singer.  She fixed her hair, put make up on, and put on a nice dress and is totally transformed.

She definitely looks glamorous here.

Ana Marina as a host and cook

Ana Marina as the Fado Singer.

What a transformation between the 2 pictures!

The lights are dim down, Duarte and another guitarist settled down at the far end of the room and started to play guitar.

The show opened with Tony Proenca (picture on top in DVD cover).  He is just an okay singer compare with Bruno and Ana.

Bruno Igrejas is probably the best singer of the night.

He has a very nice voice, sang with passion, and it was heartfelt.

Click HERE to see one of his performance on you tube

 

 

Ana Marina is a professional and you can tell she loves to sing.

Click HERE to see one of his performance on you tube

 

After performing for over an hour all the singers took a break which is a chance for Duarte and Ana Marina to go ahead and talk to their guests and also to serve refreshment.

Whiskey for Hoa and Minh -water for Me and Loan (we are cheap dates!)

Tonight most of the guests are from Germany, France, Finland, Latvia, Portugal, and U.S. (that's us) and each table is requested to sing a song representing their country.

Minh of course will sing for our table and chose to sing Besame Mucho - Too bad we forgot to take a picture.

I thought it was an odd choice to represent California, I probably chose a song with California in the song but Minh said he could only remember words for Besame Mucho.

All the other guests sang mostly their country anthem with the exception of France that sang "La vie en rose" and the whole room had to help them as they could not really sing.

 

As the night progress,  friends of Duarte and Ana Marina made impromptu stop to sing a few songs for us.  This singer here just came back from a tour and will sing modern

Fado for us and one of his song talks about "computer"

We started diner at 7:30PM, Fado music started around 10:30/11:00Pm and by the time the show was over it was close to 2:00PM.

The restaurant is located in a small street and it would be very difficult to get a taxi at this time of the evening so as soon as the performance was over, Duarte ran out to get taxis for all of his guests.

What a memorable evening! We love, love, love the whole experience, and we also felt privileged to be part of such a wonderful evening.

 

The next day we told Minh and Loan that when they retired they might consider the same concept at Sr Fado: Loan will be cooking while Minh will be serving and then once dinner is served Minh can sing and entertain his guests just like Duarte and Ana Marina!

  We will be their first customers! UNLIKELY but it could happen! 

 

Sr. Fado de Alfama

Rua dos Remedios 176

Alfama, Lisbon 1100, Portugal

Tel: 351 914 431 971

 

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