A seagull was flying

On 24 February 1969, the Grande Prémio TV da Canção (TV Song Grand Prix) left the studios for the first time and was broadcast live from this stage, presented by the actress Maria de Lourdes Norberto.¹⁰¹¹ It was won by “Desfolhada Portuguesa” (Portuguese Husking), a poem by José Carlos Ary dos Santos with music by Nuno Nazareth Fernandes, sung by Simone de Oliveira, who had not been the first choice.¹²¹⁰ The censors let through the line “Whoever makes a child, makes it for pleasure” (Quem faz um filho, fá-lo por gosto), which offended the most conservative morality.¹⁰ Fifty years later, the singer told Visão that she was insulted in restaurants and pestered in the street, “above all by men”, and that she came close to being arrested.⁴ Teresa Paula Brito also competed that night; she turns up again at the Coliseu and at the end of the route.¹¹

The theatre lived through those years, as it says itself, “next door to the headquarters of the political police”: the PIDE headquarters stood on this same street, a few steps away.¹³ In May 1974, with freedom already won, the Emissora Nacional and RTP organised a “free singing” show here: poems by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Manuel Alegre and other poets were recited, and “Cantar Não É Talvez Suficiente” (Singing Is Perhaps Not Enough), by Manuel Alegre, with music by Francisco Fanhais, was sung.¹⁴

For the 1st Portuguese Song Meeting (I Encontro da Canção Portuguesa), which the Casa da Imprensa (Press House) organised here on 29 March 1974, the song lyrics had been sent in advance to the Directorate-General of Public Performances. They came back to the wings at around 20:30, “reasonably truncated, or even cut altogether”, José Jorge Letria later recalled, and the singers learnt of the cuts a few minutes before the start; among the banned songs were “Venham Mais Cinco” (Let five more come) and “A Morte Saiu à Rua” (Death Went Out into the Street), by José Afonso.¹ Francisco Fanhais, who was due to perform, was banned and watched from the audience. Manuel Freire said he had left the lyrics behind on the train, and the hall understood, rose to its feet and sang “Pedra Filosofal” (Philosopher’s Stone) with him.¹

Maria do Amparo was on the stage: according to the caption in the next day’s Diário de Lisboa, five thousand people rose to their feet to sing “Grândola” with José Afonso, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, José Jorge Letria, Manuel Freire, José Barata Moura, Carlos Moniz, Maria do Amparo and the group Intróito. The newspaper’s report had a text by the journalist Regina Louro, who told how Letria called all the singers onto the stage to sing together. When the Casa da Imprensa prizes were handed out, the hall shouted “Fascists! Fascists!” (Fascistas! Fascistas!) for almost a minute, as the PSP commander keeping watch over the night wrote in his report.¹

Other women passed across this stage. Teresa Paula Brito sang here, just once, Maria Teresa Horta’s poems from the record Minha Senhora de Mim (My Lady of Myself), and was booed by an audience that found them too sensual; she left the stage in tears.⁵ Luísa Basto sang here in 1980, at the 10th anniversary of the CGTP-IN trade union confederation.¹⁵ And on 29 January 1983, already ill, José Afonso sang “Grândola” with the hall once more, and at the end shouted what he could not in 1974: “25 April, Always!” (25 de Abril, Sempre!).¹ The night of 1974 is also told in the route “Forbidden words”.

Natália Correia lived on the fifth floor of No. 52 on this street from 1953 until her death, in 1993.¹⁶ She was living here when the Antologia de Poesia Portuguesa Erótica e Satírica (Anthology of Portuguese Erotic and Satirical Poetry), which she edited and published in 1966, was seized by the censors and took her to trial at the Plenary Court, from 1969 to 1970.¹⁶

One of her poems became a song: José Mário Branco, in exile in France since 1963, set “Queixa das Almas Jovens Censuradas” (Lament of the Censored Young Souls) to music and recorded it in 1971 on the LP Mudam-se os Tempos, Mudam-se as Vontades (Times Change, Wills Change), made at the Strawberry Studio, in Hérouville.^7181920 He recorded it again in 1982, on the record Ser Solidário (Being in Solidarity).²¹ Natália wrote the poem in 1957, according to the Museu do Aljube, when she was already living in this house;¹⁷ the sources do not say where she wrote it: this is the author’s home, not the place of the song.

Raul Solnado opened this theatre on 10 January 1965.²² Four years later, on 26 May 1969, RTP premiered Zip-Zip here, by Solnado, Carlos Cruz and Fialho Gouveia, recorded before a live audience: on the first programme, the actress Laura Soveral recited Almada Negreiros’s poem “Pede-se a uma criança: desenha uma flor!” (A child is asked: draw a flower!), and the guest was Almada himself.²³ Until December, on Monday nights, the programme brought into people’s homes a generation of singers with guitars in hand, the “baladeiros” (balladeers).⁸²⁴

It was on this stage that Manuel Freire first sang “Pedra Filosofal” (Philosopher’s Stone) in public, on the poem by António Gedeão; he sang it again on the last programme and, in 1971, came back here to receive the “bronze disc”, for ten thousand records sold.⁸²⁴ Maria do Amparo also appeared on the programme, and the broadcast of Francisco Fanhais’s “Cantilena” required backstage negotiations with the censors.²⁵⁸

Ana Maria Teodósio sang on Zip-Zip alongside Carlos Alberto Moniz.²⁵⁸ The first song she chose, of “delicate feminine sensuality”, in the words of Observador — “my long, smooth legs / are vaults are temples” (minhas pernas longas, lisas, / são abóbadas são templos) — was vetoed by the censors as “obscene”; she sang the second, “Meninos” (Children), and no recording of either survives.⁸ In 1971, she was the first to record “Manuel”, Ermelinda Duarte’s song about the colonial war — and it is Ermelinda who waits at the end of the route.⁸

At 22:55 on 24 April 1974, from the studio that the Emissores Associados de Lisboa had on the 7th floor of this building, the announcer João Paulo Diniz put “E Depois do Adeus” (And After the Goodbye), sung by Paulo de Carvalho, on the air: it was the first signal of the Armed Forces Movement.²⁶²⁷ The Movement had chosen it because it would not arouse suspicion: it was a romantic ballad, with no political content.²⁸

The song, with words by José Niza and music by José Calvário, had won the Grande Prémio TV da Canção (TV Song Grand Prix) on 7 March, broadcast live from the Maria Matos Theatre and presented by Glória de Matos and Artur Agostinho.²⁹ It was Glória de Matos who chalked up on the board the results that Artur Agostinho announced, and who handed the prize to Paulo de Carvalho.⁹ The second signal, “Grândola”, went out at 00:20 on Rádio Renascença; that story is told in the route “The first day”.²⁸

Here, in the grounds of the Feira Popular funfair, Lisbon City Council had a cinema pavilion. It was there that, on 16 December 1964, Luzia Maria Martins and Helena Félix presented Joana de Lorena (Joan of Lorraine), the first production of the Teatro Estúdio de Lisboa (Lisbon Studio Theatre, TEL), the city’s first independent theatre company, which they founded with Valentina Trigo de Sousa.³⁰³¹ In 1972, the pavilion became the Vasco Santana Theatre, the TEL’s permanent home.³⁰

In 1974, Luzia Maria Martins wrote Lisboa 72-74 for the company, scenes of Lisbon life that opened after 25 April. It was in that play that “Somos Livres” (We Are Free) was heard for the first time, with words and music by the actress Ermelinda Duarte, a member of the TEL since 1969: “A seagull was flying, flying, / wings of wind, heart of sea. / Like her, we are free, / we are free to fly” (Uma gaivota voava, voava, / asas de vento, coração de mar. / Como ela, somos livres, / somos livres de voar).³²³³³ RTP counts it among the most popular songs after the overthrow of the dictatorship.² The sources do not say in which venue the play opened.

Also in 1974, late in the afternoon and with free admission, the Women’s Liberation Movement launched “Mulheres Guerrilheiras” (Guerrilla Women) here, which O Século announced as the first Portuguese feminist record: a poem by Maria Teresa Horta, music by Pedro Jordão, sung by Teresa Paula Brito, the same singer the Coliseu audience had booed.⁶⁵ The TEL came to an end in 1991, the year Helena Félix died, and a street near here has borne her name since International Women’s Day 1993.³²³¹ The Feira closed in 2003, and the site is now a building site.³⁰³⁴