Fado Museum — Attraction in Lisbon

Tour from HELL! Seriously the worst EVER! no kidding, our bus arrived at noon, as being expected to arrive an hour and a half earlier. To add insult to the injury, no one would answer the phone at the agency. Together about twenty tourists stood in the sun baking, waiting, with nowhere to sit, and of course no bathrooms or water refreshments nearby. We stood patiently waiting just under the Arc de Triomphe. When the bus arrived the coordinator played down the incovience, and went about ignoring everyones concern. We arrived at our destination within a few minutes, since it was only about ten miles from the pick up location. We were then told that we received SKIP THE Line passes and he would have to go get our tickets. Fifteen minutes later he returned stating we are going to have some free time and we needed to return to the location at one twenty since we missed our appointment due to lateness of our arrival. Weird as it seems we followed the guides directions and waited. We made our way back outside the gates at the appointed time, and waited until about one thirty for our guide to reappear. He now appears to be working to obtain our tickets to enter the venue. We will then become instructed to form a single file line to enter. Now it's about quarter till two and six or seven groups of 6, 7, 8 year olds are cutting out line making entry. This was CHAOS, we got to now pass the security check point. Ok, now it's two o'clock and we are told to wait for our guide radios. SURPRISE, this became a self guided tour with no maps just to follow everyone else. That's right the blind leading the blind. Some of the display rooms became packed with over a hundred on lookers browsing or worst yet, stopping for selfies, not one or two but several. STUPID is what stupid does. OK, we have made it through three floors and nourmerious red herrings dead ends and empty spaces. Now nearing three thirty-five we discovered the on site bistro. Today's saving grace, this was a splendid place to relax get a drink, something to eat, and wonder how many people are still churning wandering about the rooms. Since we were promised a return bus ride and it was already four thirty we knew we needed to arrive at the appointed location before five o'clock, or the bus would leave without us. Well, wouldn't you know it, five o'clock and no bus. We have about thirty people waiting, at about five thirty a mini bus, a twenty passenger bus arrives and we are told that there is another bus arriving in three minutes. Ok, it was more like ten, and now it's almost six o'clock we are on our way back, the bus temperature inside is steaming hot, the bus has a broken air conditioner. We now have people bailing off with the temp to high and the driver has no clue how to activate the ac. This...

A Fado Museum, right in the front yard of the traditional Alfama neighborhood.

It's a small museum that provides a good overall perspective on fado for the non specialist. The visit is done with an audioguide, and exhibits show numbers which connect with sound and voice explanations. This way, the visitor can decide how thorough he wants the visit to be: check all the available fadista's biographies or just of some? Listen to all the historical notes, or just a few? Ignore all audio explanations and just skim the visuals of the exhibition? The museum tries to go beyond the musical aspect of fado, with paintings, media and other cultural expressions as means to understand the phenomenon. It is aimed at the general public (or tourist) and not to a more specialized crowd. There is no musicology, nor analysis of the music form through time, nor a decomposition of its characteristics, nor of its recent influences, where it comes from and where it is going to. But it does document a broad intuitive picture of the cultural value of Fado. It doesn't promote the advancement of the understanding of fado, but it does help to frame the mindset of those new arrivals and who have not much of an idea of what fado is.

The museum is housed in a former water elevatory station, from the 19c. It was renewed into the actual museum by architects Santa-Rita in 1998. The interior architecture is of a post-modern style typical of the duo of architects, with the use of strong colors, play on spacial distortions and an unsettling fragmentation of forms, in an anxious search for drama (which sometimes gets exhausting). Where a corridor is particularly narrow, the visitor is thrown against a big window opening up to the Alfama neighborhood, as if the neighborhood was part of the exhibition - which could be, as so much of fado is rooted to it. There is a (almost) secret room. And the auditorium seems to be suspended over the space. Columns are oblique.

The circulation might be a bit confusing, but distribution is simple: the top floor has the permanent exhibition and auditorium, the basement the temporary exhibitions, ground floor has services, souvenir shop, etc. Restaurant and school develops on a side wing.

Tickets can be bought at the entrance. Wheelchair accessible. Efficient and friendly staff. Backpacks must be stored in the cloakroom. Photography...

Ready to listen to lots of Fado? This museum put me off Fado to some extent, while also providing a listening treat that was lovely. Let me explain. The musuem provides a historical tour of the development of Fado, this is fine but not very exciting. I would have liked more mini-biographies of Fado artists and perhaps some wider context information. There is also a documentary film, which includes interviews with Fado artists & historians. Many of their comments sounded very elitist. There are also a couple of walls of photos of performers and you can listen to a song from a sample of these. The frustrating thing here is that no additional information, other than their name is provided. There are a couple of seats with headphones, where you can listen to songs from a large catalog. This provides a bio and pics. But there aren't many seats and someone could spend hours here. What put me off Fado? Well, there was this elitist element throughout the musuem, as if famous Fado artists were a special category of individuals. One display described the spread of Fado to Africa and Brazil, while a performer said that only a Portugese person could really sing Fado. The displays spoke of the Lisbon origins of Fado, while elsewhere saying Fado defined Portugal as a whole. It felt what Fado was and who sang it was controlled by an elite. The feeling was disturbing. I still love Fado but want to forget how this museum made me feel about it. Finally, it was a bit expense for...