Search - Fortuna :: Mazal

Fortuna was born in the large Jewish community at São Paulo, Brazil, and reconnected with her religious and cultural roots during a visit to Israel. She is a devoted advocate of the Sephardic traditions that were once found in Portugal and also throughout the Iberian peninsula, before Queen Isabella enacted the Inquisition and expelled the Jews and Moors from Spain. Fortuna is a queenly and theatrical figure, dark-haired and dressed in gold-embroidered velvets. She sings in Hebrew and in Ladino, an ancient Spanish-Jewish dialect, and her mezzo-soprano vocals are as sensual and perfumed as the material she sings. The album's title is taken from a Sephardic proverb, "Oh God, give me a bit of luck and throw me deep into the sea," a precognition of the Jews' ceaseless migrations in search of peace and safety. --Christina Roden