The striking blue and white panels that decorate the Fairways villas are a joyful homage to Portuguese culture and heritage. There is poetry from Luís de Camões, the father of Portuguese literature, as well as depictions of bygone country life and examples of Portuguese porcelain.
The sea and Portugal’s great navigators are represented too. But perhaps best expressing the essence of Portugal is the panel celebrating Fado.
Fado music is unlike any other, expressing a deep yearning and melancholy outpouring of emotion, nostalgia and regret. The word that best describes Fado is saudade, which roughly translates as ‘longing’. The Portuguese take their Fado very seriously, so don’t expect to hear it sung in restaurants or bars against the background of chatter. You’re more like to find it in the concert halls of Faro or Loulé.
Taking pride of place on the Fairways Fado artwork is a portrait of Amália Rodrigues, universally acknowledged as the Queen of Fado, together with a snippet of the lyrics to one of her jollier songs called, appropriately enough for Fairways, Uma Casa Portuguesa (A Portuguese House). The Portuguese have a saying: ‘Todos nós temos Amália na voz, e temos na sua voz a voz de todos nós,’ which translates as ‘We all have Amália in our voice, and we have in her voice the voice of all of us’.
Born in 1920 in Lisbon, Amália Rodrigues was self-taught and began by competing in local singing contests. She went on to have a 40-year singing and acting career that put Fado on the world map as a musical genre, writing many of her own lyrics. Amália, the Queen of Fado, performed all around the world from the La Vie en Rose nightclub in Paris, to London, to Carnegie Hall in New York, singing in Portuguese, French, Italian and English.
She starred in a film with Edith Piaf and had a song written for her by Charles Aznavour.
She was the best-selling Portuguese recording artist of all time, winning a gold disc in Cannes in 1967, as well as the two subsequent years – a feat equalled only by The Beatles. Her popularity was such that, when she died in 1999, aged 79, she was given a state funeral with three days of national mourning.
Following Amália’s death, Fado enjoyed a surge of popularity, and today Marisa dos Reis Nunes, known simply as Mariza, performs Fado to critical acclaim. Originally from Portuguese Mozambique, Mariza has sold over a million records worldwide and has taken on the role of keeping Fado, the soul of Portugal, alive. Check out her album, Fado em Mim (Fado in Me).
