I once went to a live Fados concert, because a Portuguese
friend assured me that I would like it. I did enjoy the music,
but it was vocal music, and I understood very little of the
words. This concert was in New Bedford, where a majority of the
residents probably speak more Portuguese than I do, and I’m sure
it was a vast majority in this audience. The rest of the
audience seemed very enthusiastic, so I’m sure the performers
made the right decision to not bother with trying to put the
words across to non-Portuguese speakers, but I would have
enjoyed it more if I’d known what they were singing about.
This
movie is what I was looking for. The performers are making
no concessions to explaining their performances, but there are
subtitles. The movie just moves from one performance to the
next, often beautiful productions with scenery and dance and
fluid costumes.
There are titles on the performances, but it’s not always clear
whether they’re the location, the name of the song, the name of
the group, or the name of a style. But it really doesn’t
matter.
The director, Carlos Saura, has produced other movies like
this. I’ve seen Flamenco,
which I enjoyed but wasn’t as interested in as I was in Fados.
But Tango
might be worth checking out.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B002GE8GJ0&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=laymusicorg-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0000DIJOT&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
LayMusic.org 