Nara Leão

Nara Leão earned the affectionate title Musa da Bossa Nova, marking her as a central presence within the bossa nova movement. She moved beyond that genre alone and ranked among the earliest participants in the artistic wave later labeled “canção de protesto,” whose songs condemned Brazil’s military dictatorship. Her platform helped launch composers and interpreters such as Chico Buarque, Zé Keti, Martinho da Vila, Edu Lobo, Paulinho da Viola, and Fagner. Although her voice remained short and untrained, she performed internationally and assembled a substantial discography before an early death overtook her.

At age one she relocated with her family from Vitória to Rio. Beginning in 1954 she received violão instruction from Solon Ayala and Patrício Teixeira, then from Roberto Menescal and Carlos Lyra. As an amateur she joined the initial university concerts that crystallized bossa nova into an organized style, appearing with João Gilberto, Luiz Eça, Ronaldo Bôscoli—who later became her fiancé after a romance—Carlos Lyra, and others. She also worked as a reporter for the Rio daily Última Hora. Her parents’ spacious apartment at Posto 4 in Copacabana, on Rio’s south side, served as a regular gathering place for musicians, prompting some to mistake it for bossa nova’s birthplace, though the Cantina do César and especially the Plaza nightclub around 1952 hold firmer claims.

Her professional debut arrived in 1963 through the musical comedy Pobre Menina Rica by Vinícius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra; during the run the cast also played the Carioca nightclub Au bon Gourmet. That year she entered recording studios with “Naná” by Moacir Santos, included on the soundtrack to Cacá Diegues’ Ganga Zumba, Rei dos Palmares. She further contributed two tracks to Carlos Lyra’s Philips LP Depois do Carnaval: the marcha-rancho “Marcha da Quarta-Feira de Cinzas,” written with Vinícius de Moraes, and the samba-jazz piece “Promessas de Você” by Carlos Lyra and Nelson Lins e Barros. She toured Brazil, Japan, and France with Sérgio Mendes; while traveling the Northeast, Roberto Santana introduced her to the Vila Velha Gang—the Bahians Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Maria Bethânia.

Her first album, Nara, issued by Elenco, brought the sambista do morro Zé Keti into middle-class awareness through the hit “Diz que Fui por Aí,” composed with H. Rocha. She likewise restored the veteran sambista do morro Cartola to prominence with “O Sol Nascerá,” shared with Elton Medeiros. Two additional tracks from the set achieved lasting success: “Consolação” by Baden Powell and Vinícius de Moraes, and “O Morro” by Carlos Lyra and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri. The repertoire signaled her growing social awareness by favoring material outside bossa nova. Those concerns sharpened after the military coup imposed dictatorship, spurring her to protest actively.

The follow-up Philips release Opinião de Nara (1964) contained “Opinião” by Zé Keti. In December 1964 the show Opinião by Gianfrancesco Guarnieri and Augusto Boal opened successfully at Rio’s Teatro Opinião, uniting Leão as the middle-class figure, Zé Keti as the voice of the morro, and João do Vale from the Northeast. Its long run drew middle-class crowds from the samba stronghold Zicartola, owned by Cartola himself, which soon closed; the production also diminished bossa nova’s domestic standing. Leão publicly denounced bossa nova as an “alienating” movement, yet the show’s instrumental support stayed rooted in bossa, as documented on a 1994 CD reissue underscoring that the break was chiefly ideological.

In 1965 she presented Chico Buarque’s socially charged “Pedro Pedreiro” and “Olê, Olá.” She joined the Teatro Opinião production Liberdade, Liberdade by Flávio Rangel and Millôr Fernandes and appeared on Elis Regina and Jair Rodrigues’ television program O Fino da Bossa, which also featured Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Edu Lobo, Tom Jobim, Vinícius de Moraes, and Ivan Lins. The 1966 Philips album Manhã de Liberdade followed. At TV Record’s II FMPB in São Paulo she and Chico Buarque performed “A Banda,” sharing first place with “Disparada” by Geraldo Vandré and Théo de Barros; she recorded “A Banda” paired with “Ladainha,” the first song by the duo Gilberto Gil and Capinam. The next year she sang Sidney Miller’s “A Estrada e o Violeiro” with its composer at the III FMPB, where it won Best Lyrics. Between 1966 and 1967 she and Chico Buarque hosted the weekly television program Pra Ver a Banda Passar on TV Record. A 1966 interview with the Carioca newspaper Diário de Notícias nearly led to charges under the National Security Law after she criticized the military’s ineffectiveness. Canto Livre de Nara appeared as her 1967 LP.

In 1968 she entered the Tropicalista circle, joining Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Rogério Duprat, Tom Zé, Capinam, Os Mutantes, Torquato Neto, and Gal Costa on the collective album Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis. That year her self-titled Nara Leão LP featured Ernesto Nazareth’s “Odeon” with lyrics Vinícius de Moraes wrote expressly for her. Released at the Carioca nightclub Le Bilboquet, the record included two Veloso pieces—“Mamãe Coragem” and “Deus vos Salve Esta Casa Santa,” both with Torquato Neto—under Rogério Duprat’s arrangements that linked it to Tropicalia. She withdrew from television for an entire year, objecting to producers’ narrow artistic outlook. The following year she moved to France and recorded another LP. Dez Anos Depois was made for Polydor in Paris in 1971 before she returned to Brazil. In 1972 she appeared in her husband Cacá Diegues’ film Quando o Carnaval Chegar with Chico Buarque and Maria Bethânia. She then began psychology studies and largely set music aside, making only occasional guest appearances on recordings by artists such as Fagner. Late in the decade Philips issued Meus Amigos são um Barato (1977), featuring Tom Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Roberto Menescal, and others.

After learning she had cancer she resumed her career with renewed force, completing eleven further LPs by 1988. In 1997 filmmaker Júlio Brassane devoted his first play, Vida-Névoa-Nada, to her life.