Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Back in the autumn of 2002, Mariza made her London debut with a remarkable, passionate performance at the Purcell Room that justified her role as the new celebrity of Portuguese fado. Since then she has become an international phenomenon, recorded with an orchestra and mixed fado with influences from Spain or Brazil. But now she is promoting her back-to-basics album Fado Tradicional with what, for her, was a very intimate show.
Mariza has always specialised in theatrics, and the stage was set out like a dimly lit Lisbon fado house, with candle-lit tables, where some of the audience were seated. She looked dramatic as ever, a tall, slim figure in a long black gown, with blonde cropped hair, backed by a trio playing Portuguese, acoustic and acoustic bass guitars, with a Latin American cajón box drum added on some songs. She has been advised to postpone one date on her current tour because of her pregnancy, but there was no sign here that she was restraining her performance.
Fado includes dance pieces along with pained ballads, and she treated both styles with the same declamatory intensity. It worked well for many of the songs, but she would have been helped by greater variety and quieter passages, as with the changes of mood, and dramatic silences, in her partly unaccompanied treatment of the pained Amália Rodrigues song, Ai, Esta Pena De Mim. At the end she really did return to basics, performing without a microphone and then walking out to sing in the audience. A standing ovation was guaranteed, but she would have sounded even more impressive if fewer of the songs had been tackled full tilt.