A Brazilian soprano in jazz-age Paris
Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1902, Elsie Houston arrived in Paris as a 24 year old, and wowed audiences with songs in Afro-Brazilian dialect which fused folk with a soprano training.
Xang么 (the god of thunder) and Paso 脩a帽igo鈥�, composed by the Cuban Moises Simons, were two of the numbers performed by Elsie Houston in the clubs of Paris in the 1920s. Also able to sing soprano in Portuguese, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian, Elsie's performances in Afro-Brazilian dialects chimed with the fashion for all things African. Adjoa Osei's essay traces Elsie's connections with Surrealist artists and writers, (there are photos of her taken by Man Ray), and looks at how she used her mixed race heritage to navigate her way through society and speak out for African inspired arts.
Adjoa Osei is a researcher based at Trinity College, Cambridge. She was selected as a 2021 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by 蜜芽传媒 Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.
Producer: Ruth Watts
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