/ARTS WEEKLY/ BRAZIL: Age Hasn’t Slowed the Multi-Talented Chico Buarque

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 29 2004 (IPS) - Composer, novelist, playwright, singer- songwriter and amateur footballer at 60, Francisco Buarque de Hollanda, or simply ”Chico”, is the image of ”national unanimity” for the Brazilian people.

For the past 40 years he has assured his millions of fans in Brazil and the rest of the world a steady supply of good music. He has been a celebrity since he was young, but he has maintained humility, treats his fans with courtesy – and fiercely defends his privacy.

It is nearly impossible for someone so famous to go unnoticed in public, but he does what he can to stay out of the limelight. He doesn’t like public exposure, has a hard time with introducing himself at his concerts and almost never grants interviews.

Chico recently turned 60 and he did not want any parties or tributes, but they were inevitable, even if he didn’t show up.

His genes gave him blue eyes – the frustrated ideal of many Brazilians – and he was born with an intellectual, if not silver, spoon in his mouth, son of historian Sergio Buarque de Hollanda, author of ”Brazil’s Roots”, one of the handful of books considered required reading for those who want to understand this giant South American nation.

Chico’s creativity is impressive both for its quality and its versatility. He has composed hundreds of songs and written the lyrics for the melodies of others. His opus includes plays and film scripts, and lately he has dedicated himself seriously to literature.

Three best-selling novels, already translated to other languages, can be found on his résumé: ”Estorvo” (Turbulence) was published in 1991, ”Benjamin” in 1995 and ”Budapest” just last year. The first two have already been adapted for the big screen.

His other books include the story collection ”A banda” (1966); the fable ”Fazenda modelo” (Model Farm, 1974), a criticism of Brazil’s 1964- 1985 military dictatorship and inspired on George Orwell’s ”Animal Farm”; and ”A bordo do Rui Barbosa”, poetry from 1981.

In 1979 he published a children’s book, ”Chapeuzinho amarelo” (Little Yellow Riding Hood), a variation on the well-known tale in which the hood was red – a story he often told his daughter Luiza.

Chico will always be best known for his music, which overshadows his work in theatre, where he was also a sort of prodigy with many notable plays.

His biggest production in Rio de Janeiro in recent years was his ”Opera do malandro”, Bertolt Brecht’s ”Three-penny Opera” adapted to Brazilian history.

As a young man he began to earn fame for his first songs, like ”A banda”, which won him first prize at a 1966 music festival, and ”Olé, Olá”, which he wrote at age 16, but also for setting to music the theatrical poem ”Morte e Vida Severina”, by Joao Cabral de Melo Neto.

He later wrote other musicals, like ”Roda Viva” (1967), ”Calabar” (1973) and ”Gota d’agua” (1975), critical of the military dictatorship. This made Chico one of the main victims of the regime’s censorship, but also one of its leading experts in creatively writing to escape the redactor’s black pen.

Many of his songs were for theatre and film, even before he or other artists recorded them. From his exile in Italy, in the early 1970s, he brought home a Portuguese version of ”The acrobats”, by Luis Bacalov and Sergio Bardotti, which thrills young children to this day.

Chico has never been a revolutionary in his music, although it is always of high quality and refinement. It is simple only in on the surface, as it makes reference to traditional musical genres, especially samba, ”the most Brazilian” of rhythms.

As such he is considered a follower of Noel Rosa, a famous composer in the 1930s who brought the samba, which originated among the Afro- Brazilian population in the ‘favelas’ (slums), to Rio de Janeiro’s middle classes.

In that sense, Chico’s songs are more traditional than the ”bossa nova”, a stylised version of samba with a great deal of jazz influence in the harmonies, which reflected the euphoria of the prosperous and growing middle class in Rio’s beach neighbourhoods in the 1950s and early 1960s, and which achieved great success in the United States.

But with 21 years of his career spent under the military dictatorship, he stood out for his political protest, disguised in metaphors to elude the censors.

”A pesar de voce, amanha ha de ser outro dia” (In spite of you, tomorrow will be another day) is a refrain from one of his songs that was sung by huge crowds demanding that Brazil return to democracy.

So much success in so many artistic arenas, not to mention his good looks, have made him a revered public figure for millions of Brazilians.

His image is only strengthened by the fact that he has reached 60, svelte and fit enough to continue playing on his football team, Polytheama, in a neighbourhood in western Rio de Janeiro.

He was married 30 years, until 1997, to Marieta Severo, one of Brazil’s great actresses, with whom he had three daughters, and now enjoys watching his three grandchildren grow up.