Evora’s Voice Elevates a Minimalist Style

Singer Cesaria Evora has emerged as a major world music diva in the last two years. And on Saturday night, in the first of two performances at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater, she confirmed--in what was, even for her, a relatively subdued performance--that her high visibility is fully deserved.

Small, unassuming-looking, surrounded on all sides by her six musicians and continuing to perform barefoot, Evora simply sang her songs--with little ornamentation and no explanation. For most performers, a presentation with so few bells and whistles would be disastrous. But Evora’s voice, among the most emotionally poignant sounds in all of music, reached out, its capacity to touch the soul undeterred by the fact that the language of the words was unfamiliar.

Evora sang songs from her Grammy-nominated 1995 debut album, “Cesaria Evora,” as well as material from her latest Nonesuch release, “Cabo Verde.” Though the later numbers dipped into somewhat broader styles, it was her mornas--plaintive, saudade-filled songs from her native Cape Verde--that had the greatest effect.

Like Billie Holiday, Evora has the ability to add slight, emphatic accents to her melodies, often in the form of rising inflections, which lend an irresistible personal touch to her interpretations. And whenever she did so, the effect was magical, storytelling via melody, rhythm and sheer personal expression.

A captivated overflow crowd, reluctant to let her slip away, demanded encores. And Evora, her subdued composure finally loosened, complied, adding a few buoyant dance steps and a final, modest wave to her listeners as she concluded her final number.