The musical “Amalia, Dona de Si” shows the public and private side of the singer.

The musical Amalia, Dona de Si, scheduled for Sunday at the Coliseu dos Recreios in Lisbon, shows the public and private side of the singer and fado singer, considered the voice of Portugal, director and playwright Jaime Monsanto said.

A mixture of theatre, concert and dance show, the musical is staged by the Academy of Music of Coimbra (ADC) and the En Danza Conservatory in Vila Nova de Famalicán. He debuted at the Center for Arts and Performances (CAE) in Figueira da Foz in December 2021, “flying” to São Paulo, Brazil, with three performances at the Circuito de Teatro em Português last December and, with a seal of approval from Fundação Amalia Rodrigues, arrives next Sunday at Coliseu dos Recreios.

In a conversation with the Lusa agency, the actors of “Amalia, Doña de Si” noted that the new musical arose from the dream of the singer and actor Diogo Carvalho, to which dramaturgy was added, musical instruments revised and others added, culminating in a biographical performance about the life and the legacy of Amalia Rodriguez.

“We are in the Coliseu dos Recreios because the administration of the Amalia Rodriguez Foundation went to the premiere of the show at CAE. They tried to understand who we are and who they supported, and they gave permission to use the name Amalia. And they were absolutely thrilled with the show, so much so that when they decided to close the festivities, they decided to give us a call to present the show at the Colise,” director Jaime Monsanto told Luce.

Regarding the idea of ​​adding dramaturgy to the musical, he revealed that his approach was to take all the evidence left by Amalia Rodriguez, who died in 1999 at the age of 79, “between books, testimonies and interviews, and try to organize from her performance because she left him,” he said.

“The show – and the music helps a lot – ends up being something that oscillates between the public and private sides of Amalia. more of her social life, more theatrical, more open, more in a good mood, and immediately after that we enter into her intimacy,” said Jaime Monsanto.

In Brazil, where the troupe performed in three different theaters, “there was something very beautiful, very nice people at the end of the performance said: ‘It’s funny, this Amalia didn’t know that this existed, this one didn’t.’ “their interior decoration, which she also left,” the director emphasized.

The intention of Diogo Carvalho, the originator of the idea, was to put on a show about Amalia, about someone he likes and admires. Jaime Monsanto agreed, but wanted to “quote and understand.”

“Later, in the confrontation of music, since the songs also tell their story and testimonies about it, people will decide for themselves what they want to know about them. put yourself in front of this figure, apparently without judgment [feitos] director,” he said.

The project, which was conceived and implemented in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, involved collecting all existing information about Amalia for six months while the musicians, singer and actor continued to select songs.

The members of the group, “each in their own field,” will eventually become the collective “discoverers” of Amalia Rodriguez, pianist and AMC CEO Pedro Ferreira emphasized.

Diogo Carvalho, 29, is the protagonist of the musical “Amalia, Dona de Si”, where he sometimes plays the singer and fado singer and other characters (such as musicians who are not static on stage) or acts along with his voice. .

This dream to honor the memory of Amalia Rodriguez, coming from a man who was only six when the singer died and apparently never saw her perform, grew up in the family: ‘The first musical I went to see with my grandmother was ‘Amalia’, from Lá Féria and that fascinated me,” he recalled.

Now, after the Amalia Rodriguez Foundation saw the show and “recognized its quality,” Diogo called it “an absolute honor” to be able to “step onto the stage” of the Coliseu dos Recreios, “on which Amalia herself entered and where she ended her career” in 1994. .

While acknowledging that performing in Lisbon could be different from the audience’s point of view, given that there are “a lot of people in the capital who vibrate Amalia and consider the singer theirs,” pianist Pedro Ferreira, who is also the keyboardist for Anaquim. , emphasized that all the elements that make up “Amalia, Donu de Si” are used on stage for joint participation in other projects.

“What we cannot do is be immune to this burden of knowing that the Colosseum was the last place where Amalia Rodriguez operated. There will be. But we are also confident in what we must do,” he said.

In addition to those already mentioned, the musical “Amalia, Dona de Si” features musicians Ricardo Silva (Portuguese guitar) and Filipe Ferreira (double bass), costumes from the Cearte training center, as well as the participation of dancers from An-Dança. conservatory, dancer DNA – School of Dance and Arts in Coimbra and Marcha do Castelo in Lisbon.