Ana Maria Teodósio

Her father, an orchestra trombonist, would not let her take up singing, even though her choral singing teacher at the secondary school (liceu) advised it: “he thought it was dangerous and a very bad environment, that women had to make concessions”, she told Observador. On holiday, in the Gândara, she used to sing protest songs in the dance hall, until a “bufo” (informer) complained to the PIDE, which carried out a raid in the middle of the night. In Lisbon, in the university theatre of the Faculty of Letters, she acted alongside Luís Miguel Cintra and Jorge Silva Melo and met Ermelinda Duarte.¹

She sang at a session in Casal Ventoso, at the invitation of the social worker Manuela Portas; Carlos Alberto Moniz, who was in the audience, took her to meet José Afonso, in Setúbal, who suggested to the Orfeu label that it record her.¹ With Moniz she went, in 1969, on Zip-Zip, at the Villaret Theatre.²³⁴ The censors vetoed as “obscene” the first song she chose — “my long, smooth legs / are vaults are temples” (minhas pernas longas, lisas, / são abóbadas são templos) — and she sang the second, “Meninos” (Children). No recording of either survives.¹

Her only record, Ana, came out in 1971 on Orfeu and included the first recording of “Manuel”, Ermelinda Duarte’s song about the colonial war — “Manuel went off to war […] I will not kill my brother” (Manuel partiu para a guerra […] Não matarei o meu irmão).¹ In 1973 she competed in the Festival RTP da Canção (RTP Song Festival) in the quartet Improviso, with Maria do Amparo, Carlos Alberto Moniz and Manuel José Soares.³ She later became a teacher.¹