Summer festivals in western Canada are fine places to play and hear styles and genres of music suited to the open air such as bluegrass or Afrobeat. But when it comes to a song tradition that developed in the shadowy, late-night atmosphere of southern European taverns and local restaurants - and continues to thrive there - the great outdoors can be tough on performer and listener alike.

Portuguese fado star Mariza showed her class and her charisma at both the Mission and Edmonton folk festivals this year with performances that earned standing ovations - an impressive response to intimate songs delivered in a language few in the audience understood. Soul, however, is universal. The first notes from Mariza’s powerful and plangent voice caused an audible ripple of excitement to pass through the ranks of festivaliers ensconced on the blue tarps.

Mariza overcame the disjunction between her passionate and mostly melancholic music and the setting in grand style. As she shifted effortlessly from a murmur to a cry, then back again, listeners were left in no doubt why she’s filled concert halls and garnered rave reviews across Europe in the past year. And her performances in BC and Alberta introduced hundreds of people to a rich vein of music that, until recently, has been little heard in the English-speaking world.

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Fado is to Portugal what tango is to Argentina or flamenco to Andalucía: it embodies the spirit of a people. And, like tango and flamenco, no one is sure exactly when or how it originated. There are several theories. Some academics believe fado trickled down to the common folk from the court and high society, others argue it was brought by slaves. The most prevalent view is that fado - which means Ofate’ - developed out of the mournful songs of sailors. “I would agree that it is closely connected with the sea,” says Mariza, interviewed backstage at the Edmonton festival, after her performance. “For me fado is more than music, it’s a feeling.”

The emotion most closely associated with fado is saudade, a largely untranslatable word whose essence is a blend of yearning for and missing something essential - a love, a country, the past, a part of oneself. “And if you want to write about the ambience you could imagine a small, dark taverna, people drinking red wine, and the sound of the [12 stringed] Portuguese guitar,” says Mariza. She and her band are doing their best to recreate some home atmosphere in the trailer - a large bottle of vinho tinto is on the table, and I’m offered fried cod with garlic and olive oil, brought by some admirers of fado’s new ambassador.

For 60 years one woman dominated the genre. If you’ve ever heard a recording of fado, the chances are that the singer was Amalia Rodrigues. Portugal’s equivalent of Edith Piaf died in 1999, and Mariza is being hailed as her successor, though she deftly steps around that trap. “Amalia doesn’t need a successor or a daughter, because her music is still alive,” she states quietly. Needless to say Rodrigues was Mariza’s primary inspiration, although they never met. “I cried for three days when she died, and couldn’t bring myself to go to the funeral, which was immense and very very emotional.”

While essentially a traditional fadista, Mariza gives her performances a contemporary and dramatic edge through intelligent use of spot-lighting and carefully-choreographed movements that emphasize certain key words or phrases, and the meaning of the songs, most of them written by poets and set to music. Dressed in a long gown, her fingers entwined in the fringes of a black shawl draped over her bare shoulders, her hair close-cropped and sculpted into rows of platinum-blond waves, Mariza strikes a bold and elegant figure. Amusingly, the press often refer to her being a tall woman. She wears high heels alright, but her stature is normal. It’s Mariza’s stage presence and her command of the music and the audience that make her seem tall.

Mariza Nuñes was born in Mozambique, but her family moved to Portugal when she was a baby and settled in Mouraria, a Lisbon neighbourhood closely associated with fado. Barely four or five years old, she was interpreting in her own way the songs she heard around her. “At that time I didn't know how to read,” says Mariza, in clear though somewhat halting English. “My father made drawings on the paper and I start learning the lyrics with the drawings to help me remember.” She would join in the singing in the restaurant and Ofado house’ that her parents ran, and became rapidly immersed in the culture. Mariza gained a strong local reputation. “Growing up in the traditional ambiance, that’s what makes a fadista [fado singer].”

According to tradition the first great fadista was a young woman called Maria Severa who kept a small tavern in Lisbon with her mother. “She was also from Mouraria where I come from, and her mother was a gypsy,” says Mariza. In 1836 the beauty of Severa’s song seduced the Comte de Vimioso, and the scandal of their brief and tempestuous affair greatly increased the popularity of fado.

One of the items in Mariza’s concert set pays homage to her musical forebear. It’s delivered in a particularly strong, full-throated style - as Mariza imagines Maria would have sung - and she ends the song with one foot raised up on a chair, lifting her black gown to reveal bright knitted-stockings. More than just a sexy move, it’s also a symbolic  way of proclaiming both her respect for tradition and her modernity as a fadista. “We know that Maria wore stripped stockings like mine - but they were black and red, and mine are multi-coloured because I live in the 21st century,” says Mariza, with a laugh.

In time fado became so popular it was associated with Portugal itself. The dictators Antonio Salazar and his successor Marcello Caetano promoted it as a national genre. Following Caetano’s overthrow in  the Carnation Revolution of 1974, fado inevitably slipped in popular favour. This partial eclipse ended with the outpouring of feeling throughout the country on the demise of Rodrigues.

Mariza received major media exposure for the first time as one of the guest singers in a couple of tribute concerts for Rodrigues, held in Lisbon and Oporto. Both events were carried live on TV, and Mariza’s impassioned performances caught the eye and ear of a nation. In 2000, she received the prestigious “Voice of Fado” award, presented by Central FM (Portugal’s national radio station). Two years ago she released her debut Fado em Mim [Fado in me]. It proved an unprecedented success for an album of the genre, and she began performing abroad. Earlier this year Mariza won the BBC Radio3 Award Award for World Music in the category for Europe.

On tour Mariza is backed by the traditional instruments of fado: stand-up bass, Portuguese guitar or guitarra, and Spanish guitar (confusingly known as a viola). The guitarra embellishes the vocal melody, and the viola provides chordal accompaniment. “I have been performing with my viola-player Antonio Neto for a very long time,” says Mariza. “We started when I was six years-old and he was a teenager, learning to play from his grandfather. We used to make wonderful concerts on our street for the neighbours. It’s really important to have people near me who understand me well. All the people I work with are friends.”

Mariza isn’t confined to these instruments however. She also uses cello and piano on Fado em Mim, emphasising the dark tonalities of the songs. On a couple of tracks she also brings in percussion, including the adufe drum typical of the folk music of Beira Baixa in north-east Portugal. And with the song “O Deserto”, on her second album Fado Curvo, Mariza opens up a new dimension for fado - the use of brass. “I had an idea it would be a good mix to have the sound of the guitarra and the trumpet with a mute. I never heard of fado with a trumpet, but it worked perfectly. It’s a trip between Lisbon and New York.”

The songs on Fado Curvo are all striking, but I’m particularly impressed by Mariza’s interpretation of the quintessentially- fado lyrics of “Primavera”: All the love that bound us / As if it was made of wax, was broken and undone / Ah, fatal spring / How I wish, how we wish / to have died that day. “It’s my favourite fado,” she reveals, “I don’t know exactly why, but I love the poem, it’s really special. Amalia [Rodrigues] used to sing that fado. It’s traditional. I’ve sung it for a long time. That fado is my biggest passion.” At both Mission and Edmonton, Mariza performed the song to close her set, and brought the crowds to their feet. The electricity generated could have powered Toronto for a week.