Mariza’s immaculate, platinum-blond flapper hairdo and elegant couture catch the eye, but it’s her seasoned diva voice that pleases the ear.

The 29-year-old Portuguese chanteuse has taken world music by storm with her passionate and charismatic fado, an emotional, Portuguese folk music compared to the blues, flamenco and tango.  They each share a melancholy tome and subject matter, but fado is renowned for its saudade, and intense, and sometimes, nostalgic yearning.

“There’s a charisma and energy Mariza radiates in performance that completely captivates anyone who’s watching,” says Tom Schnabel, produced of DCRW’s “Café LA” and program director of world music for the L.A. Philharmonic, who saw Mariza perform last year at the Conga Room and helped get her the opening slot in Lauryn Hill’s July 14 Hollywood Bowl concert, where Mariza garnered a standing ovation. 

“She presents the material wonderfully to people who may not know much about the history o fado, which is important for any world music.”

Audiences can see and hear it for themselves when Mariza, on the road in support of her new CD, “Fado Curvo,” plays L.A.’s House of Blues Wednesday.

Fado’s existence dates back to the first half of the 19^th century.  The Portuguese culture contained a substantial African and mixed race (primarily Brazilian” population, most of them poor and disenfranchised laborers centered in the Alfama area of Lisbon.

Their dances, called the “fofa” and the “fundum,” a lewd song and dance exchange, heavily influenced the development of the fado, as did the rich Portuguese history of poetry and literature, with the folk culture of quatrains (rhyming couplets) and the modhina (ballad tradition) recognized as the cathartic music’s lyrical origins.

By some accounts, the first fadista appeared in the 1830s.  Maria Severa began the tradition of wearing a dramatic black shawl.  She sang poetry expressing the experiences o women waiting by the harbor for their men to return or grieving because they never would.

While the first fado recordings date back to 1910, the music truly flowered during the 1920s and ‘30s, when a series of landmark records documenting the fado de Coimbra style, a tightly rehearsed, highly stylized, and far less cathartic form, was released.

In the early 1940s, Amalia Rodrigues burst on the scene and became fado’s most important figure.

Rodrigues, born in Lisbon’s Alfama district, reinvented fado by fusing the urban and rural styles of Lisbon and Coimbra.  She also sought out material that moved beyond the traditional tales of failed romance to explore the deepest crises of the soul and spirit, delivering performances unmatched in their fatalistic power and haunting beauty. 

When Rodrigues died in 1999at the age of 79, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres ordered three days of national mourning, declaring her “the voice of Portugal.”

Many critics think Mariza might be another Rodrigues.  Born in Mozambique to a black mother and Portuguese father, Mariza Nunes was raised in the Lisbon district of Mouraria, which borders Alfama.

Mariza jumped into the fado arena in 1998, and two years later won Portugal’s “Best Fado Voice 2000” award.  Her 2001 debut, “Fado em Mim (The Fado in Me),” which hit U.S. record stores last year, has sold more than 100,000 copies worldwide.

That disc celebrated the traditional style and featured five fados that had been immortalized by Rodrigues.  Mariza says the CD was an initial effort at dipping her tow in the fado recording pool.

But on “Fado Curvo,” she takes chances.  While embracing fado traditions, Mariza also challenges listeners and critics by adding modern flavors, such as the trumpet.

“It’s more me and my sound and my way of singing,” says Mariza, phoning from a Montreal hotel.

Critics are thrilled with the approach.

“There are a lot of guys adding new instruments, but the trick is knowing how far to go and how far not to go and what’s in good taste.  She does it very well,” says Donald Cohen, author of “Fado Portugues: Songs from the Soul of Portugal,” which hits bookshelves late summer or early fall from Wise Publications.

“She’s pushing the envelope, and it’s good for the music,” Schnabel says, “or else fado is going to stay in its little box, and everybody’s going to be crying over Amalia Rodrigues being gone.

“Fado is a great enough music that it needs to be moved forward, and it will be moved forward by singers as glamorous and talented as Mariza,” Schnabel adds.

“She’s going to be one of the only people who’ve been able to make that crossover from Portuguese culture to a more universal culture,” Cohen says.  “She speaks English. She’s got a very good sense of humor and a great presence.”

While critics think the fado torch has been passed to a new generation and Mariza will carry it, she just wants to make sure the music gets heard and doesn’t become a lost treasure.

“One of these days you’ll go to Lisbon and they’re going to say, ‘We had music, it was fado, but now you have to go to the museum to listen,’” Mariza says.

“I try to show them you could respect the traditions but at the same time give steps in front.

“What I’m trying to do is show how I feel, and what I think we could do with this music,  We could respect the traditions but at the same time do big steps and not enclose fado in four walls and make it museum music.”