Cesaria Evora, the moody Cape Verdean thrush who died last Saturday, performed in New Haven at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in June, 2000. I’m having trouble believing it was that long ago, since my memory of the concert is so fresh.
This was one of those A&I “Courtyard Concerts,” on an outdoor stage in a walled-in yard outside an impressive Yale building. Artists take to such a staging arrangement in different ways. Some treat it like any other park festival, even though it’s clearly more intimate and reserved. Some treat it like an indoor club gig, ignoring the unique atmosphere.
Cesaria Evora nailed the concept. She didn’t do anything special—or rather, anymore special than what she usually did. She sang divinely, then sat at a little round onstage table and drank and smoke until her backing band required her to sing again. Theatrically, she was the female equivalent of Tom Waits’ 1970s persona, without the grift. Just a weary woman with a great gift.
In that courtyard, Cesaria Evora acknowledged the breeze. She reflected the warmth and the nature. You could smell her cigarette smoke, but as an accent and not as the annoyance it might have been indoors. She seemed freed and refreshed by being able to set up shop on someone’s lawn. Her songs were as downcast and unsettling as ever—her magnificent voice had the power to chill and wound—but she was in her element. Windswept, unflappable, immoveable.