Nara Leão

Nara Leão, the Musa da Bossa Nova (Bossa Nova's Muse, as she is affectionately known), was a prominent figure in bossa nova. She didn't restrict herself as a bossa nova singer, though, and was one of the first artists to engage in the movement later known as "canção de protesto" (protest song), an artistic movement which denounced military dictatorship in Brazil. She launched the careers of such composers/interpreters as Chico Buarque, Zé Keti, Martinho da Vila, Edu Lobo, Paulinho da Viola, and Fagner. An international performer in spite of her short, uneducated voice, she left an expressive discography even though death caught her by surprise at such a precocious age. When she was a year old, she and her family left Vitória for Rio. In 1954, she took her first violão classes with Solon Ayala and Patrício Teixeira, and then with Roberto Menescal and Carlos Lyra. As an amateur, she participated in the first university presentations where bossa nova was coming together as an organized movement. She performed with names such as João Gilberto, Luiz Eça, Ronaldo Bôscoli (with whom she would have a love affair and later become his fiancée), Carlos Lyra, and others. At that time, she was a reporter for Rio's newspaper Última Hora. The ample apartment of her complacent parents in Rio's south side (zona sul), Copacabana, Posto 4, became a meeting point for musicians, which led many to erroneously establish it as a bossa nova cradle (actually, the cradle was, to some extent, the Cantina do César, but even more appropriately, the Plaza nightclub around 1952). In 1963, she debuted as a professional, working in the musical comedy Pobre Menina Rica, by Vinícius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra. While working on the play, they also acted at the Carioca nightclub Au bon Gourmet. She also...