Gabriel de Oliveira's 'Ha Festa na Mouraria' and the fado Novo's criticism of the Estado Novo's demolition of the Baixa Mouraria.

The Estado Novo's plans for urban rehabilitation in Lisbon, (1) carried out by Duarte Pacheco's 'Plano de Urbanizacao e Expansao da Cidade' and Faria da Costa's 'Salvacao Barreto' programme, justified the demolition of historic neighborhoods 'condemned to progress', including the capital's oldest districts: Mouraria and Alfama. (2) However, just before Salazar's death, in 1969, and the consequent shift in political regime as Portugal advanced to its 25 April Revolution, the Salvacao Barreto project had lost its momentum. Although as early as 1940, national attention focused on the restoration of the Se and the Torre de Belem, the Camara Municipal de Lisboa did not propose a plan to protect Lisbon's architectural heritage until 1967. (3) By then, the lower Mouraria had suffered the blows of the Estado Novo's progress. Plans to widen Rua da Palma and Avenida Almirante Reis--first presented in 1852--were realized in the 1930s. (4) Between the 1930s and 60s, the lower Mouraria was demolished: the palace of the Marques de Alegrete in 1946; the Apollo Theatre in 1949; the church of Socorro and the buildings to the west of Rua da Mouraria in 1956. In 1961, Lisboners reacted to Salvacao Barreto's neglect of the capital's architectural heritage when the Mouraria's only extant gates on the fourteenth-century Fernandine Wall--Portas de Sao Vicente da Mouraria/Arco do Marques de Alegrete--were demolished. In the midst of the destruction of the lower Mouraria, the sixteenth-century hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Saude was spared. The hermitage's anomolic condition, perched unscathed among unsophisticated shopping centres and cement fountains--the bleak manifestations of Salvacao Barreto's progress--has made it a symbol of tradition in a Lisbon compelled to modernization. (5)

The hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Saude and its four-century-old procession serve as leit-motifs in the fado novo of the 1940s-60s, as symbols of resistance to the Estado Novo's modernization of Lisbon, while the Salvacao Barreto urban rehabilitation project threatens to erase the Mouraria. The lyrics of the fado novo manifest a protest to the demolition; they denounce the Estado Novo's concept of progress by evoking nostalgia for a pre-Republican Mouraria, embodied in the hermitage. Gabriel de Oliveira wrote 'Ha Festa na Mouraria' in the 1930s, during the first stages of the Mouraria's rehabilitation. (6) His fado recalls the extinct procession of Nossa Senhora da Saude, interrupted by the First Republic. However, when fadistas performed and recorded the song after the procession had reappeared in the Mouraria, in 1940, it was recontextualized in the memories of a Mouraria that had already vanished: a decadent Mouraria characterized by prostitution and violent crime. I propose that Gabriel de Oliveira's motifs of the hermitage of Nossa Senhora da Saude and its annual procession in 'Ha Festa na Mouraria' have been appropriated by later fado lyricists to denounce the Salvacao Barreto urban rehabilitation project. I shall examine the evolution of the leit-motifs of the hermitage, the procession and the historical and poetic avatars of the song's protagonist, Rosa Maria, in the later fados novos, to conclude that Gabriel de Oliveira's 'Ha Festa na Mouraria' has inspired a subversive trend in the fado novo: the idealization of a pre-Republican Mouraria--emblematized by the hermitage and its procession--as an alternative to the Estado Novo's notion of progress.

By 1961, Lisboners were reacting to the Estado Novo's eradication of their architectural patrimony in the Mouraria. Political cartoons of the late 1940s to early 60s indicate popular opposition to the Salvacao Barreto project. Most cartoons appeal to an intrinsic irony in the Estado Novo's plans for progress: the demolition of the cradle of the fado. The regime's plans for urban renewal jeopardized Salazar's patriotic trinity of the Fs (fado, Fatima and football) by bulldozing Lisbon's most fadista quarter. By appropriating the musical form consecrated by the Estado Novo, the humorists turned the tables on the political regime. One cartoon entitled 'Fado da Demolicao' quotes newspaper headlines: 'Vao deitar abaixo mais uma parte da Mouraria', alongside the depiction of workers chipping away at the Arco do Marques de Alegrete. (7) Another represents 'O Fado Mouraria' as two construction workers playing the shovel and the pickaxe as guitarra and viola. (8) Stuart's drawing of the Escadinhas da Saude suggests that the demolition of the Mouraria threatened the nation's heroic past: 'Fado da Mouraria: D. Afonso Henriques conquistou Lisboa aos mouros, mas popou a Mouraria. Agora vai tudo abaixo sem salvacao nenhuma, ou, melhor, so com Salvacao [...] Barreto.' (9) Some satirists criticized the Salvacao Barreto project through parody of the lyrics of recognizable fados. 'Ai, Mouraria' is satirized as a guitarist who falls into a ditch at the site of the Martim Moniz metro, exclaiming: 'Ai [Mouraria, que nunca mais te tapam os buracos!].' (10) And a crying nineteenth-century fadista wanders through the rubble of the twentieth-century Baixa Mouraria, as he sings to the tune of the old 'Fado da Severa':

      Chorai, fadistas, chorai
      Que a Mouraria l[sz] vai
      E est[sz] quase no 'squeleto
      Apesar da tradicao
      [ETH] bairro sem Salvacao
      Com o Salvacao Barreto. (11)

The cartoonists' manifest criticism of the Estado Novo's renovation of the historic district is tempered by the humorous context of the comic, thus its subversive intentions escaped censorship. The fado, however, benefited from a privileged position during Salazar's regime, when it was subservient to the Estado Novo's concept of nationalism. The censoring of Amalia Rodrigues's recording of 'Fado de Peniche (Abandono)' for subversive content, is testimony of the critical limits imposed on the fado novo. (12) But the fado novo never fully divorced itself from its anti-social character of the nineteenth century and continued to lampoon society's absurdities in the twentieth. The lyricists, however, had to resort to allegory and metaphor to criticize the Estado Novo.

Nostalgia for the pre-Republican Mouraria reappears in the fados novos of the 1940s-60s as subversive criticism of the Estado Novo's dream of progress. Because the theme of saudade is central to the fado novo, its manifestation within the context of a disappearing Mouraria seems inoffensive. Twentieth-century lyricists recognized the leit-motif of saudade in the recent fados and benefited from the emotion's capacity to denounce the present in light of a glorious past. (13) The fado novo, therefore, appeared to adhere to a Portuguese aesthetic: the morrinha of the cantigas d'amigo or Camoes's spleen in exile. Nevertheless, the recontextualized saudade questioned the judgment of the state, by accusing the Salvacao Barreto programme of ignoring the past. The fado thus points its finger at the regime's paradoxes, signaling the cannibalization of its ideals: progress implies the sacrifice of an heroic national history.

Examples of critical discourse masked by innocuous lyrical tropes abound in the fado novo. 'Ai, Mouraria' appears to be a love song imbued with nostalgia for Severa's Mouraria:

      Ai Mouraria
      Das procisses a passar
      Da Severa em voz saudosa
      Na guitarra a solucar.

However, the song may be interpreted as a lament of the 1930s widening of Rua da Palma:

      Ai, Mouraria
      Da velha Rua da Palma
      Onde eu um dia
      Deixei presa a minh'alma.

'Ja Nao Vou a Mouraria' is disguised as the narration of a spurned woman's evasion of her lover:

      J[sz] nao vou C Mouraria
      P'ra nao ver certa janela
      Onde eu nao estou dentro dela
      Que triste verdade. (14)

We may, however, read between the lines her alienation from the transformed Mouraria.

The theme of Maria Severa's death, as allegory for the death of the Mouraria in the Salvacao Barreto project, appears repeatedly in the fado novo. 'Anda o Fado n'Outras Bocas' borrows the lyrics of the 'Fado da Severa' ('Chorae, fadistas, chorae') to comment on the fado's absence from a new Mouraria without traditions:

      Andei p'la Mouraria
      Nas tascas d'antigamente
      Mas o fado estava ausente
      Mudou de l[sz] quem diria. (15)

The fado 'Maria Severa' remarks on the absence of tradition in the demolished Mouraria by pondering a new generation's ignorance of the nineteenth-century fadista:

      Num beco da Mouraria
      Onde a alegria
      Do sol nao vem
      Morreu Maria Severa
      Sabem quem era?
      Talvez ninguem. (16)

And 'Fadista Louco' narrates the story of a mad singer whose apparent moaning for Severa's death is discovered to be his mourning the death of the Mouraria:

      Louco gritou p'la Severa
      E quando a manha surgiu
      Quando alguem quis ver quem era
      Nunca mais ninguem o ouviu
      Entao fiquei meditando
      Que o louco que ninguem via
      Era a saudade chorando
      A morte da Mouraria. (17)

I can cite two fados that engage critical discourse of the Salvacao Barreto programme in unmasked language: 'Adeus, Mouraria' and 'Mataram a Mouraria'. (18) The former is a carefully constructed farewell to the lower Mouraria that takes inventory of the demolition:

      Adeus,   casas velhinhas
      Das vielas estreitinhas
      Onde o fado j[sz] morou
      Adeus, taberna bizarra
      Onde nas noites de farra
      S  a saudade ficou. (19)

The refrain of 'Adeus, Mouraria' does not mince words as it evokes nostalgia for the leveled district while bemoaning progress:

      Adeus, Mouraria
      Adeus, tradicao
      J[sz] vejo a cidade
      Cantar com saudade
      A tua cancao
      E as casas velhinhas
      Feitas pedraria
      Vao pelo caminho dizendo
      Adeus, Mouraria.

'Mataram a Mouraria' personifies the fado's mourning of the murder of the Mouraria, thus valiantly assigning homicidal blame to the Salvacao Barreto rehabilitation projects:

      J[sz] era tarde quando passava
      Ouvi alguem a gemer
      Naquela rua sombria
      Era o fado que chorava
      Porque lhe foram dizer
      Mataram a Mouraria.

This fado's final verse, however, tempers the lyrics' aggression towards the Estado Novo by questioning the fado novo's tendency to equate progress with the loss of tradition:

      Enquanto houver portugueses
      Ninguem diga em Portugal
      Que vai morrendo o passado.

By viewing tradition in abstract terms, 'Mataram a Mouraria' puts the onus on the Portuguse to maintain their historical conscience, despite the demolitions: thus the song's libel of the Estado Novo is ambiguous.

Now that we have established the fado novo's implicit critical tendency towards the Salvacao Barreto projects, we can examine Oliveira's fado. In the early 1930s, Rua do Capelao's Gabriel de Oliveira wrote 'Ha Festa na Mouraria' to the music of Alfredo (Marceneiro) Duarte's 'Fado Viela'. (20) Oliveira's fado tells the story of Rosa Maria, a prostitute on Rua do Capelao, who experiences a religious epiphany during the already defunct 20 April procession of Nossa Senhora da Saude:

      H[sz] festa na Mouraria
      [ETH] dia da procissao
      Da Senhora da Saode
      Ate a Rosa Maria
      Da Rua do Capelao
      Parece que tem virtude. (21)

The allusion to Oliveira's Rua do Capelao signals more than autobiographical nostalgia. It recalls the Rua Suja of the nineteenth century, 'frequentadissima pela marujada inglesa e portuguesa'. (22) Nevertheless, the Lisbon audience instinctively associates Oliveira's Capelao with Leitao de Barros's 1931 cinematic adaptation of Julio Dantas's Capelao, thus suppressing the street's nineteenth reality as: '[covil] de ladroes, onde entravam os moleiros com os seus burros, desaparecendo uns e outros sem haver mais nova nem mandado deles'; (23) or the street that 'briga e canta; risca, atira o punhal e empunha a banza truanesca,' where 'brigoes e cantadeiros estao ali na sua casa'. (24)

The idealization of the decadent pre-Republican Mouraria takes shape at the turn of the twentieth century in eyewitness (or nearly eyewitness) histories that expose the underbelly of Rua do Capelao's prostitution while observing the prostitutes with compassion. Jose Augusto Palmeirim's Os Excentricos do Meu Tempo (1891), Pinto de Carvalho's Historia do Fado (1903) and Alberto Pimentel's A Triste Cancao do Sul (1904) boast of Severa and her contemporaries as provocateuses of outdated duels. By the late 1930s, Lisboners associated the nineteenth-century Mouraria with the splendor of its legends of bull-fighting noblemen who courted singing prostitutes. In 1938, Norberto de Araujo remarks on his contemporaries' anachronistic vision of the Mouraria: 'desapareceu ha anos o aspecto sordido de "ma vida", que por ai abaixo se prolongava ate a grande arteria da Rua da Mouraria, onde se desafogava de "fado" reles a ignominiosa "Rua Suja" do seculo passado'. He adds: 'a Mouraria de hoje, afinal, a das guitarras, das facadas, das rameiras, dos pianos de botequim-ja nao existe.' (25)

The transformation of the criminal Mouraria into the romantic/folkloric Mouraria is indebeted to Julio Dantas's novel (1900), drama (1901), operetta (1909) and film (1931), A Severa. (26) His heroine dies neither of syphilis, stroke nor of choking on a meal of pigeon, but rather in the arms of her apocryphal lover, as she sings:

      Tenho o destino marcado
      Desde a hora em que te vi
      O meu cigano adorado
      Viver abracada ao fado
      Morrer abracada a ti. (27)

By the time of the first projects to widen Rua da Palma and Avenida Almirante Reis, Lisboners recognized the lyrics of Dina Teresa's 'Novo Fado da Severa (Rua do Capelao)'. (28) Thus Rua do Capelao's true setting of knife-fights and dangerous brothels mingled with the image of the street 'juncada de rosmaninho', so much so that in 1943, Norberto de Araujo describes Rua do Capelao 'fechado entre muros de rosmaninho'. (29) And even today, two pots of lavender decorate the entrance to Rua do Capelao on Rua da Mouraria.

But who was Rosa Maria? Eduardo Sucena identifies her as 'outra triste inquilina da Rua do Capelao', Oliveira's neighbour (1903-45). (30) In the nineteenth century, however, there existed two Rosa Marias in and near the Mouraria, who may have inspired Oliveira's character. Pimentel and Sucena write of a Rosa Maria whose fado house was one of the most celebrated in the Alfama, at the turn of the twentieth century. (31) And Pinto de Carvalho informs us of a Rosa Maria who lived on Rua do Capelao in the 1830s, who frequented the brothel A Tasca da Rita, on Rua da Amendoeira: 'tinha um amasio, soldado artilheiro, que se escondia numa alcova do prostibulo sordido [...] para atacar e roubar os pataus, que ousavam aventurar-se ali.' (32) However, even within Oliveira's lifetime, Rosa Maria reappears in the fado novo as the incarnation of the nineteenth-century Mouraria prostitute: a composite of Severa, Scarnic-chia, Joana de Bettencourt and Maria Petiza. (33) Oliveira's theme of the reverent Mouraria prostitute reverberates in Antonio Amargo's lyrics:

      A chorar de arrependida
      A cantar com devocao
      Uma voz fadista e rude
      Aquela Rosa perdida
      Da Rua do Capelao
      Parece que tem virtude. (34)

The appropriation of the character by Anibal Nazare and Nelson de Barros in 'Fado Falado', from the 1947 cabaret show 'Ta Bem ou Nao Ta', is evidence of Oliveira's influence on the fado novo and demonstrates the Lisbon audience's recognition of Oliveira's quasi-historical character, even before 1950:

      Uma hist ria bem singela
      Bairro antigo, uma viela
      Um marinheiro gingao
      E a Emilia Cigarreira
      Que ainda tinha mais virtude
      Que a pr pria Rosa Maria
      No dia da Procissao
      Da Senhora da Saode. (35)

As a result of the reappearance of the character in popular music, the biographical coincidence with Oliveira's neighbour fades as Rosa Maria is caricatured as a woman of questionable virtue and exploited as a relic of the pre-Republican Mouraria. Ze Manel marries Rosa Maria in the church of Nossa Senhora da Saude in the ballad, 'Ze Manel e Rosa Maria'. (36) In 'O Leilao da Casa da Mariquinhas', the singer meets an older Rosa Maria, 'ainda fresca e com gaje', in the Mouraria. (37) In 'Chico Faia', o Chiquinho Faia,

      Tem sempre ao seu lado
      Uma garota p'r[sz] farra
      Chama-se Rosa Maria
      Que e para cantar o fado
      Enquanto toca a guitarra. (38)

And 'Fui ao Baile' tells the story of a fadista's jealousy when her lover deceives her with Rosa Maria: 'Bem vi que falaste com a Rosa Maria | A tal que tu namoraste | Da Rua da Mouraria.' (39)

Oliveira's Rosa Maria's association with the mythic/poetic Capelao identifies her as a prostitute. Between the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Mouraria, Bairro Alto and Madragoa were red-light districts