Fado

Yesterday I enjoyed one of my privileges as Green Party leader attending on invitation the performance by Fado Singer Cristina Branca at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta. It was a magical evening of traditional Portuguese music courtesy of the Portuguese Embassy. Cristina’s passion for her craft is evident and it was not only her skill, her talent and the music that attracted the massive applause every time. She seemed to be responding to the place and the people. Had such music been heard in Pinto’s theatre? Was this an echo from a forgotten past? Did some in this audience have ancestors who were similarly enthralled centuries before? Listening carefully one can make out some words in Portuguese if Italian and French are familiar. But not a lot more. I must have missed much and yet it seemed so familiar, like the sound of a language one knows well following the cadences one hears every day. Perhaps this was part of the magic of Fado in Malta taking back its audience to a distant past which is still alive in us, a facet of our character we share with other Mediterraneans. Between the songs Cristina spoke of destiny, that she felt like it had been her destiny to perform in Malta. She spoke of the mysticism of Fado. For those who had ears it was more than that: the easy assumption of ownership of a music which should be unfamiliar, it tells of origins distant in time and which none of us may ever fully explore. Here were the voices, the hearts and minds of peoples from every shore of the Mediterranean coming together to produce something at once beautiful and awesome, clearly antique and so very much alive.