Genre
Fado, world music. The album blends traditional fado compositions with original material and Amália Rodrigues classics, set against lush orchestral arrangements featuring the Lisbon Symphony Orchestra, vocoder, and Fairlight synthesizer, in an approach that both honours and contemporises the fado tradition.
Release
Released in 1993 by Movieplay Portuguesa.The album was reissued internationally in 1995 by BMG Ariola.
Production
Produced by Guilherme Inês, with Maria João Castanheira as co-executive producer and recording and mixing engineer. Orchestral arrangements were by Ramón Galarza; the Lisbon Symphony Orchestra provided the orchestral backdrop. Dulce Pontes handled vocal arrangements and played synthesizer alongside Inês, who also contributed acoustic and electric guitar and piano. Tracks 4 and 9 were recorded live in the studio. Recorded and mixed at Namouche Studios, Lisbon, Portugal, between July and October 1993.
Reception
Lágrimas sold over one million copies worldwide, becoming one of the most successful Portuguese albums of the 1990s. The track "Canção do Mar" gained major international recognition after its inclusion on the soundtrack of the Hollywood film Primal Fear (1996), directed by Gregory Hoblit, and was subsequently covered by Sarah Brightman. The press named Pontes the "successor and heir to Amália Rodrigues."
Dulce Pontes
Dulce José Silva Pontes (born April 8, 1969, Montijo, Setúbal) is a Portuguese singer, songwriter, and pianist who began her professional career in the late 1980s after winning a local song competition at the age of eighteen. She trained at the Conservatório Nacional de Música de Lisboa and rose to national prominence when she won the Festival da Canção in 1991 with "Lusitana Paixão," representing Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she finished eighth and received the Best Singer award. Lágrimas launched her internationally. Her subsequent album Focus (2003), a collaboration with Ennio Morricone, was performed live at Parque de Monsanto in Lisbon before a vast audience. She has collaborated with Cesária Évora, Andrea Bocelli, Caetano Veloso, Joan Manuel Serrat, and Wayne Shorter, among many others, and performed at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, and the closing ceremony of Expo '98. Her accolades include the Premio Tenco (2004) and the Amigo Award for Best Latin Singer from the Spanish AFYVE (2004).
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