Bibi Ferreira at Symphony Space in Manhattan, Sep 20, 2016
Birth of the Rio Blues
On June 1, 1922, when Bibi Ferreira let out her first wail as the newborn infant of theater actor Procópio Ferreira and his Spanish-born spouse, the ballerina Aida Izquierdo, neither Rio de Janeiro, the city of her birth, nor Brazil itself looked anything like they appear today.
Looking back at that period, in February of that year the Semana de Arte Moderna (Week of Modern Art) in São Paulo had finally brought the Modernist movement into the front line of Brazil’s literary, artistic, and musical establishment; Bidu Sayão was at or near the beginning of her vocal studies in France with the legendary Jean de Reszke; Carmen Miranda was a precocious 13-year-old whose only ambition in life was to enter a convent; Heitor Villa-Lobos, who made his bow at the Semana de Arte Moderna, had his first series of concert pieces, A Prole do Bebê (“The Baby’s Family”), played in Rio by Polish pianist Artur Rubenstein.
Contemporaneous with the above, American jazz, which musicologists confirm grew out of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, was about to secure a beachhead on Brazilian shores; one of the acknowledged icons of the Jazz Age, dancer and entertainer Josephine Baker, was poised to leave an indelible mark on the Great White Way during the Harlem Renaissance; and the music/dance form known as samba, as well as Rio’s colorful Carnival parades, would soon emerge from their mutual confinement.
For me, a Brazilian-born naturalized citizen who grew up in parts of the Bronx and Manhattan, seeing a personality of the magnitude of Bibi Ferreira, the Grande Dame of the Brazilian Stage, in a lightning-fast tour of North America, enlivened my own visit to the Big Apple in ways I never expected.
It was the afternoon of September 20. I had finally settled into my hotel room, a short walking distance from the Empire State Building. After unpacking my bag and hanging my belongings in a smallish but conveniently placed closet, I leafed through the usual tourist pamphlets left by the hotel’s concierge. Opening up to an advertisement in Time Out magazine, I noticed a full-page spread by the “Ministry of Culture” and a firm labeled “Montenegro e Raman” announcing the presence of Brazilian Musical Icon, Bibi Ferreira, on the evening of September 20 and 23, at 8 p.m., at Symphony Space on Broadway and 95th Street.
I could hardly believe what the ad was telling me: Did this mean September 20th, the same date as my arrival? No, that couldn’t be right. I must have misread the advertisement. Yeah, that’s it. How silly of me! Still, the thought of being in New York on the first day of Bibi Ferreira’s concert continued to nag at me. Trying to get some satisfaction, with care I re-read the magazine ad. Sure enough, the concert was going to be held that very evening.
Holy cow! What was I waiting for? This was the opportunity of a lifetime. Never, in my wildest dreams, could I have imagined seeing and hearing Bibi Ferreira, live and in the flesh, in a New York concert hall. It was too good to be true. On a hunch, I rang the Symphony Space’s box office number and managed to secure a ticket for that night’s performance. Mercy me! How lucky can a guy be?
A Worthy Pedigree
The show was titled “4X Bibi” — “Quatro Vezes Bibi,” that is “Bibi Times Four,” which indicated that the former Abigail Izquierdo Ferreira, or “Bibi” for short, who as the story goes was introduced to the stage at barely a month old, would be performing a program of songs associated with four of the world’s most unique talents (none of them Brazilian, by the way): Portuguese fadista Amalia Rodrigues, Argentine tango singer Carlos Gardel, French chanteuse Édith Piaf, and Hoboken-born pop idol Frank Sinatra, in celebration not only of Ole Blue Eyes’ one hundredth birthday, which took place last December 2015, but Bibi’s 75 years as an artist and entertainer.
An acclaimed stage and screen icon and memorable interpreter of classic Broadway musicals; of popular songs and romantic ballads; a dancer, director, and theater manager, with numerous one woman shows to her credit; a marvelous raconteur and television personality — though never as flamboyant as her contemporary, the bawdy Dercy Gonçalves — the 94-year-old Bibi has long been associated with the cream of Brazil’s performing talents in virtually every artistic field.
Among the more familiar names are those of her father Procópio; the actors Paulo Autran and Cacilda Becker; playwright Paulo Pontes (her former husband) who died tragically of stomach cancer at age 36; singer-songwriter Chico Buarque; Walmor Chagas, Marilia Pêra, and Marco Nanini. She’s appeared in or directed works by Pontes, Flavio Rangel, Ferreira Gullar, Lillian Hellman, and Sergio Viotti, in addition to producing shows by Maria Bethânia, Clara Nunes, and dozens more.
In other words, we are talking about theatrical royalty, an enviable title to set alongside such accomplished personalities as Fernanda Montenegro, Gloria Menezes, Nicette Bruno, Eva Wilma, and Laura Cardoso, among others. On Broadway, we have the likes of Fanny Brice, Gertrude Lawrence, Ethel Merman, Constance Bennett, Mary Martin, Judy Garland, Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, Carol Channing, Barbara Cook, Patti LuPone, Liza Minnelli, and Audra McDonald. Indeed, Bibi Ferreira’s name is as worthy of inclusion in the company of all these illustrious artists as any performer I know.
While waiting on the ticketholder’s line, I spoke to several Brazilians, including a fellow named Patrick, the owner of a Brazilian churrascaria (barbecue steakhouse). He introduced me to his mother, who told me that she had first seen Bibi in concert when she was a little girl. Impressive! Once inside the theater, I took my seat in the upper balcony, it being a relatively small theater with decent sight lines and more than acceptable acoustics.
Before the show started, I engaged in an informative conversation with the couple in front of me, Seu Roberto and his wife, who came from the northeastern state of Bahia and who also happened to be on vacation in New York City. They, too, had seen Bibi perform on previous occasions, and were eager to see her again. Brazilians are a gregarious and outgoing people by nature, and will often open up to their neighbors with little to no effort. With that in mind, Seu Roberto commenced to clue me in on what one of Bibi’s shows would entail: the band leader, maestro Flávio Mendes, would lead Ms. Ferreira to center stage. During the course of her presentation, he or one of the other gentlemen would stop to offer water or ask if she needed assistance in any way.
One of the members of her group, Nilson Raman, a former actor, producer, manager, and head of the agency Montenegro e Raman that brought Bibi to the Big Apple, would provide a running commentary, taking turns with another participant (whose name escapes me) about her life as a stage performer.
Show-Stopping Moments
Even though the concert was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., the theater was far from full. I caught maestro Mendes peering out from behind a curtain. He was checking to see how much longer they would need to wait before Bibi made her entrance. The crowd, made up of the elite of New York’s Brazilian expatriate community, along with some obvious initiates, took its time to fill the auditorium. No one seemed to mind, however, that the show was delayed by half an hour. In fact, it gave the populace more time to chat among themselves. So be it.
Finally, the star herself came out, slowly and cautiously at first, befitting her advanced age. Bibi was led to the front of the stage by Raman to her right and by Mendes to her left. The other gentleman, many decades younger than Bibi, took over for Mendes as the two narrators assumed their positions to the stage’s immediate left.
As for Bibi, she was in fabulous form. Wearing a stunning white gown with diamond earrings dangling from her ears, Bibi was glamour personified. Her hair was a burnished red-brown color. Her eyebrows were thin reddish-brown lines. Her face was taut, her skin pulled back tightly. Settling down in a chair before the microphone, Bibi blew kisses to the waiting audience who answered them with shrieks and squeals, whoops and shouts of sheer delight at the presence of this beloved figure.
A standing ovation greeted Bibi as she entered. This was before she had a chance to open her mouth. In all my years of theater-going (if I had to calculate, I’d say they were over 40), I have never witnessed a case where the audience stood up to honor an artist before they had performed. Only with someone of the unquestioned acumen of a Judy Garland or a Liza Minnelli, or quite possibly Sinatra himself, might such a thing have occurred. There were rounds and rounds of applause for Bibi, so much so that it was hard to get the show going. Truly, this was a moment to be savored, a loving tribute to a living legend.
Just as Seu Roberto had predicted, the concert opened with each of the commentators intoning a narrative about the star and her exploits. They spoke in Portuguese-inflected English, which could have used the tighter editorial hand of an experienced translator (such as me perhaps?). Bibi began the show with fado, most of them associated with the great Amalia Rodrigues, including a brief bit from “Uma casa portuguesa” (“A Little Portuguese House”) by Vasco Matos Sequiera and Artur Fonseca. There was some fascinating history imparted about Os Mouros, the Moors who inhabited Portugal lo these many centuries ago. They practically invented fado, specifically in the Mouraria section of Lisbon where fado was most strongly ingrained. Bibi sang these wonderful songs with apparent ease and in impeccable Lusitanian Portuguese. This first section was greeted with a rousing ovation.
Tangos by Carlos Gardel followed thereafter, which began with “Esta Noche Me Emborracho” (“I Think I’ll Get Drunk Tonight”). We learned from Bibi’s own lips that her mother, Aida Izquierdo, insisted she only speak Spanish to her as a child. For the first seven years of her life, Bibi’s primary language was, in fact, Spanish. It happened that my own father’s first language, along with that of his siblings, was also Spanish. How odd. Bibi then went on to reveal that Argentine tangos are full of slang, which makes the words and their meanings difficult to comprehend by non-natives such as herself. Repeating a line she had sung only minutes before, Bibi confessed to her public she had no idea what it meant. The puzzled look on her face was beyond price, more so for the candor with which she expressed this bit of trivia.
After several years of touring with her mother, Bibi returned to Rio where she met up with her estranged father. Because she was refused entry to a local school, Procópio sent his daughter off to London where she was enrolled in an English school. This made her equally fluent in that language. “I only spoke perfect English,” Bibi joked in her British-accent, as she stood up to bow. Taking frequent sips of water and softly dabbing her nose with tissues, Bibi only needed a strong arm to help her come on and off the stage. The only other concession to age was her use of a TV monitor which scrolled the lyrics to each of the songs in case her memory faltered. There was little chance of that! Bibi was a true professional, right down to the marrow in her bones.
Start Spreading the News
Songs celebrating the career of Frank Sinatra were next on the agenda: “Night and Day” and “I Got You under My Skin,” by Cole Porter; “Old Man River” by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II; “That’s Life” (by Grammer, Beam, and Rose) and “The Lady is a Tramp” (Rodgers and Hart). Of course, there was classic bossa nova from the Antonio Carlos Jobim songbook, including a rousing “Água de beber” (“Water to Drink”) with lyrics by Carmen Miranda’s ex-bandleader Aloysio de Oliveira, “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars” (“Corcovado”) in Norman Gimbel’s poetic English translation, and a dreamy, trance-like rendition of “Mediation.” In this portion of her program, bossa nova came more naturally to Bibi than the other Sinatra specialties. Once you’ve heard Sinatra sing these numbers, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else doing them justice.
And finally, we had the impassioned repertoire of the incomparable Edith Piaf, to include the ever-popular “Non, je ne regrette rien” (Dumont and Vaucaire) and “La Vie en Rose,” written and composed by Piaf herself. There was also a duet with Nilson Raman, delivered by both in exceedingly colloquial French, with Raman sounding like a cross between Maurice Chevalier and Yves Montand, whom Piaf discovered and who became one of the Little Sparrow’s lovers.
In recreating one of the pivotal roles from early in her career, Bibi saved the best for last: she performed the number, “Gota d’água” (“Drop of Water”) from the play of the same name. Although the title itself translates to the American English expression “The Last Straw,” the narrators gave the literal meaning instead. Bibi played Joana (aka Medea), the wronged wife of Jason, in this modern adaptation of the Euripides story from Greek mythology. In the gut-wrenching solo, the audience was given a glimpse into plain old-fashioned stage acting — her facial expressions, her body language, indeed every part of Bibi’s anatomy was utilized in conveying Joana’s regret. This was a priceless master class in theatricality.
In her introduction to the piece, Bibi, in a side note, remarked that the play was written by Paulo Pontes, her husband at the time, who died much too young. She took a moment to sigh. I was moved by her admission. Call it “acting,” or call it what you want. To us, it was an unusual look inside an artist’s psyche — one she shared willingly with her public.
Bibi ended her program with a stirring encore of “New York, New York,” by Kander and Ebb, which brought the predominantly native audience to its feet. Who sings like this nowadays? I couldn’t help wondering that when Bibi goes, whole generations of actor-singers will be deprived of this link to a lost performance art. Despite the passing years, and the infirmities a person of her age must endure, Bibi carried herself with a pride and elegance few performers could copy, and many younger ones would envy. Her good cheer, her honesty, her ability to laugh at herself, and especially her joie de vivre, were as simple and straightforward at the start as they were towards the end.
This icon of an incontrovertible Golden Age, where Nelson Rodrigues, Chico Buarque, Oduvaldo Vianna Filho, and Paulo Pontes once dominated the scene; of Amalia Rodrigues, of Carlos Gardel, of Édith Piaf, and, most notably, Sinatra and Jobim, seemed ageless and carefree. Who can take her place? Who could ever replace the irreplaceable? These are rhetorical questions, of course, with the answer more than self-evident: no one.
At the conclusion of her show, Bibi was handed two beautiful bouquets. Slowly but securely, she was escorted off the stage by her handlers. The voice was still strong, the emotions firmly in her control. Bibi never faltered, even when her microphone did. Refitted with a livelier mike, she delivered the kind of performance rarely seen in our day. Popular music is not what it was when Bibi came of age. Of the hundreds of copycat artists out there, of the thousands of aspirants to be heard on such TV shows as The Voice and America’s Got Talent, not one of them has had the charisma, the drive, the tenacity, the strength, or the stature of Bibi Ferreira.
The thing that impressed me the most about her, though, was how warmly she spoke of her mother Aida, yet with an ever-so-slight hint of mild annoyance; how fondly she recalled her marriage — her last of five previous unions — to playwright Paulo Pontes. And how like an actor’s daughter she was!
Bibi was four times the artist of anyone I have ever encountered. Her concert proved, once and for all, that age is no impediment to great art. True, she doesn’t look anything like she did when she first appeared, say, 40 or 50 years ago. Not in another 94 years will we see her like again.
Copyright © 2016 by Josmar F. Lopes
