I first heard of Chiquinha Gonzaga some thirty years ago from a Portuguese instructor, and I think I understood that she was a Brazilian musician of some sort. I remember when the miniseries about her life was shown on Telemundo in Spanish in 1999 or 2000. I was living in New York City at the time, an emerging professional opera singer. I watched one or two episodes, and they didn’t really captivate me. Compared to the busyness of my life at the time, rehearsing for shows, taking voice and dance lessons, seeing operas at NYCO and the MET, and auditioning, a television program was low key.
In 2004 I began preparing a concert that would include art songs in French, Italian, Spanish & Portuguese. It was called “The Nature of Romance” and to date it has never been presented. It was easy to gather and learn the French, Spanish and Italian repertoire, but I had no songs in Portuguese in my repertoire. I had learned the Bacchianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Villa-lobos years ago, when I was still a soprano, but that was no longer feasible in my mezzo-soprano voice. I had heard a rendition of Azulão by Jaime Avalle performed by Kathleen Battle on one of her CDs. That was about it in terms of erudite music. I couldn’t very well put fado music (from Portugal) or MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) that I listened to, onto the program.
I contacted an old friend from my grad school days, Dr. Robin Moore, at UT-Austin, for some contacts. He is an expert in Latin American Music and Ethnomusicology. He referred me to Dr. Stela Brandão, a Brazilian soprano who was part of the diplomatic corps (Itamaraty) and serving in the NYC Brazilian Consulate at the time. When I explained my concept, music in the romance languages related to nature, Stela pulled out sheet music by various Brazilian composers. We discussed women composers, and she mentioned Babi de Oliveira and Chiquinha Gonzaga.
Several Brazilian songs became part of a concert program I presented for a competition and for future performances. In order to familiarize myself with Chiquinha’s music, to understand the context, I turned to the miniseries again, found on youtube.com. Imagine my surprise when I saw Maria Teresa Madeira (link to recent video) playing Chiquinha’s music on videos that were made to accompany the series. She was one of the pianists who played in the series–Chiquinha’s hands. Maria Teresa Madeira looked exactly the same in those videos as she had playing rags by Scott Joplin in my Beginning Ballet classes at the University of Iowa. There she was a nationally recognized pianist with the violinist Marcos Viana, famous for his soundtrack compositions. Needless to say I was very impressed and felt a strong connection to Francisca Gonzaga.
Later, Edinha Diniz released an updated biography in 2009 and chiquinhagonzaga.com was up and running, and Gonzaga’s archive was housed at the IMS (Instituto Moreira Salles) in Rio de Janeiro. In 2013 I returned to Brazil (Years earlier I had studied at PUC-Rio as a grad student for a several months). Through a curious twist of fate, I wound up spending 2 weeks in the home of a former editor for Globo, Paulo. I wanted some professional coaching on my writing in Portuguese and I had arranged a teacher/homestay. I later found out that Paulo was contacted at the last minute by a new director of the organization. Cecilia Rangel, a theatre professional, and member of SBAT (Sociedad Brasileira de Autores Teatrais), lived next door to Paulo, and I met Cecilia for the first time at SBAT where she was working. Paulo and I visited SBAT, which was founded by Chiquinha Gonzaga and contemporaries around 100 years ago. Through Cecilia, who was a friend of Edinha Diniz, I was able to speak with Edinha on the phone during that trip. I visited places that I thought Chiquinha would have frequented, like the Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro and the Confeitaria Colombo. As I wrote on this blog in 2013, 10 years ago, it was a series of coincidences that led me to people who were connected somehow to Francisca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga.
I was honored to be invited by Dr. Luis Gonçalves, Director of the Portuguese School at Middlebury, to perform some of Chiquinha’s songs and give a presentation on her life and work on July 30, 2023. It was my first time giving such a presentation in Portuguese to people outside of Brazil who had some knowledge of her. I had previously spoke about Chiquinha at the College of Charleston and University of Wyoming, both in English. I had performed her songs at those locations, in Porto Alegre at PUC-RS, and in Philadelphia.
Fortunately, in the last 10 years, many more Brazilian musicians are playing her music. One of my favorites is the pianist, Hercules Gomes, based in São Paulo. He created the CD, No tempo da Chiquinha, and has given multiple concerts and programs on her music both in person and virtually. There was a production of Forrobodó that I saw in 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, and one much more recent on youtube in Goaiana. Music instructors at the Portuguese School had included Chiquinha’s life and music in the curriculum. Moreover, there is a new documentary that was just made and shown in Brazil in June 2023, called Chiquinha Gonzaga: música substantivo feminino. Francisca “Chiquinha” Gonzaga was way ahead of her time musically and her life was scandalous for the 19th and early 20th centuries in Brazil. Today, no one would bat an eye. She was a courageous woman and a talented composer and musician. With the help of many people along the way, we keep spreading the word and the song about her music and life.
deslumbrar 