Dona Ivone Lara

Respected throughout Brazil as Dona Ivone Lara, Ivone Lara ranks among samba’s foremost female figures for her pioneering stand against gender bias inside samba schools. She became the first woman ever permitted to march in the ala dos compositores, a section reserved for men, and was later named the group’s madrinha. Over more than five decades she produced more than three hundred compositions, earning unanimous admiration from Dorival Caymmi, Martinho da Vila, Zeca Pagodinho, Gilberto Gil, Hermínio Belo de Carvalho, Beth Carvalho, Fundo de Quintal, and numerous peers. Major artists have recorded her material with notable success, bringing her multiple awards; among the widely embraced pieces are “Não me Perguntes,” “Amor Inesquecível,” “Decepção,” “Sem Cavaco, Não,” “Andei Pra Corimá,” “Alvorecer,” and “Amor sem Esperanças.”

Born into a household steeped in music, where both parents maintained close ties to Carnaval, she was orphaned at six and sent to boarding school, where she began formal music instruction. By age twelve she was already writing songs, including the chorus of the partido alto “Tiê Tiê.” At sixteen she moved in with her uncle, Cândido Pereira da Silva, a chorão and trombonist who composed choros, taught her cavaquinho, and introduced her to that circle while barring samba from the premises. In 1945 she relocated to Madureira and affiliated with the now-defunct Prazer da Serrinha samba school; although composing steadily, she could not present her work openly because of prevailing prejudice and therefore enlisted her cousin Fuleiro to submit the sambas under his name. To support herself she worked as a nurse, limiting artistic appearances to vacation periods. In 1947 she married Oscar, whose father presided over Prazer da Serrinha; the school adopted her samba “Nasci Para Sofrer” for that year’s Carnaval contest. Following the school’s dissolution, she and her colleagues transferred to G.R.E.S. Império Serrano, founded in 1947 by dissident members after a political split. During her first parade with the new school she entered the all-male ala dos compositores, wearing a white suit and goatee identical to the men’s attire, and endured sharp criticism. She continued composing, and the samba “Não me Perguntes,” created with Fuleiro, gained strong acceptance inside the school.

In 1965 the samba-enredo “Os Cinco Bailes da Corte ou os Cinco Bailes Tradicionais da História do Rio,” written with Silas de Oliveira and Bacalhau, placed fourth in the official samba-school competition. Although known chiefly within the Carioca hills, she reached broader audiences through the rodas de samba fostered by the cultural momentum of the play Opinião, which introduced her to middle-class Cariocas. Thereafter she made frequent guest appearances on other singers’ recordings, performing chiefly her own material. Since 1968 she has paraded in her school’s ala das baianas while remaining madrinha of the composers’ section. In 1974 she recorded the samba-enredo “Os Cinco Bailes da Corte ou os Cinco Bailes Tradicionais da História do Rio” for the anthology História das Escolas de Samba: Império on the Marcus Pereira label. That same year Cristina Buarque de Hollanda included “Agradeço a Deus,” written with Mano Décio da Viola, and “Confesso” on her debut album. Balancing nursing duties with music until her retirement in 1977, she then devoted herself fully to her art. The following year she released her first album and began performing regularly. Her song “Sonho Meu,” co-written with her most frequent collaborator Délcio Carvalho, was named best of 1978 and recorded as a duet by Maria Betânia and Gal Costa. Subsequent successes included “Alguém me Avisou,” later covered by Maria Betânia and Gilberto Gil among others; “Acreditar” and “Liberdade,” both recorded by Roberto Ribeiro; and “Alvorecer,” interpreted by Clara Nunes and Roberto Ribeiro. In 1984 she toured Japan, Italy, Martinica, and Spain alongside Fundo de Quintal, Martinho da Vila, and Paulinho da Viola. She maintained a long-running engagement at Teatro Opinião that ultimately spanned fourteen years.

Marking fifty years of activity in 1995, she took part in numerous tribute concerts, among them an evening at Rio’s Teatro Rival with Leci Brandão, Martinho da Vila, Almir Guineto, Hermínio Belo de Carvalho, and additional artists. She also appeared as a guest on recordings by Dorival Caymmi, Martinho da Vila, and Jair Rodrigues. Nearly a decade after her previous album, she released the 1997 CD Bodas de Ouro on Sony Music; although the label controlled every detail of the session, the project featured guest contributions from Dorival Caymmi, Gilberto Gil, Zeca Pagodinho, and Martinho da Vila. In 1999 the rival school Mangueira honored her by featuring the names of Moreira da Silva, Zé Keti, Zeca Pagodinho, and Martinho da Vila on its opening float, and she participated in a separate tribute to composers Carlos Cachaça and Zé Keti, both of whom had died that year. She recorded “Alguém me Avisou” in duo with Caetano Veloso for the album Casa de Samba, which also contained her composition “Enredo do meu Samba” created with Jorge Aragão. Vânia Bastos placed several of her pieces on the eighth album Belas e Feras, a collection devoted to female songwriters. Sustaining an active presence at samba’s principal venues, she performed at Rio’s Metropolitan in 2000 and appeared on the album Velha Guarda da Mangueira e Convidados by the surviving members of Mangueira’s traditional ensemble.