Monte illuminates the art of being happy

After the house lights dimmed at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Wednesday, Brazilian vocalist Marisa Monte started her show by singing in the dark. The longer she sang, the more unnerving the darkness became. What’s wrong? Why can’t we see her? Is she really there?

A single spotlight briefly illuminated the singer’s radiant face. Then the stage went dark again. Although other artists use the technique of singing before appearing, few finish an entire song unseen. Monte remained invisible during most of “Infinito Particular” (Private Infinity) the title track from her outstanding new album which, ironically, invites listeners to, “Look at my face. It’s just mysterious. There is no secret.”

The title refers to the artist’s interior universe, the personal world of moods and feelings she explores on the collection of songs salvaged from her stored tapes of unfinished works. The lack of light plunged each listener momentarily into his own internal space, enveloped only by Monte’s sweet, beguiling voice and gorgeous melody.

It was the only disconcerting moment in an otherwise luminous performance. For the remainder of her 90-minute set, Monte revealed herself as one of the most poised, sophisticated, yet natural and inviting performers in pop music today.

In contrast with the opening darkness, Monte and her superb nine-piece band were lighted during the concert from multiple directions by an unusual and complex array of mobile panels that created an ethereal effect. The stage seemed to glow in ways befitting the artist’s luminescent spirit.

In an interview the day before at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the down-to-earth singer illuminated her belief in the supernatural power of song. Music is a god, she asserts. She is just its servant.

“It’s much more bigger, stronger and powerful than me,” she said in English marked by a heavy Brazilian accent. “I don’t have any importance. I just have to do my best to help music do its role. I just listen to the songs and I do what they ask me to do for them to be in touch with people. So it’s simple.”

At least, she makes it seem simple.

The UCLA Live! concert is part of the singer-songwriter’s first U.S. tour in six years, and the anticipation was palpable in the hall. Monte arrived from Rio de Janeiro in the afterglow of her recent Latin Grammy win for another new release, “Universo Ao Meu Redor” (The Universe Around Me), named this year’s best samba album. Unlike “Infinito,” which features her own material in contemporary arrangements, “Universo” is the result of Monte’s efforts to research and rescue historic samba compositions that were part of an oral tradition in danger of disappearing.

The pair of new releases, which she calls her “unidentical twins,” accounted for 10 of the 24 songs she performed Wednesday. The rest came from her previous recordings, including “Tribalistas,” Monte’s celebrated 2002 collaboration with fellow Brazilian superstars Arnaldo Antunes and Carlinhos Brown.

Born in 1967, Monte started performing when she was 14. She moved to Italy at 18 to study classical music but quickly realized opera was not her calling, though it gave her a technical discipline reflected in her understated but stunning vocal work.

Monte returned to Brazil in the mid-’80s, when rock was the rage, a natural for young artists hungry for the freedom of expression denied during the country’s military dictatorship.

But she insisted on listening to her own muses, blending her beloved Brazilian traditions with the modern styles of her generation.

Fusion comes naturally for Brazil, a country born of ethnic intermarriage.

“In Brazil, everybody is mixed,” says Monte, her wavy black hair and heavy dark eyebrows highlighting her fair complexion. “Nobody is really pure in terms of race. Our food is like this. Our religion is like this. Our music is like this. It’s something very unique in the planet today.”

She politely interrupted the interview to take a long-distance call from her 3-year-old son, Mano, who bragged about learning to bake a chocolate cake.

“Que delicioso!” Mom coos deliciously, a proud smile on her face.

Whether as mother or musician, Monte seems grounded and sure of herself. Unlike artists who use music to express doubts and anguish, Monte’s work is all light and love.

People make life more difficult than it is, she says. They complicate matters that have easy solutions. They worry about things not worth the worry.

In Brazil, for example, people felt offended when “Tribalistas” won the Latin Grammy but was left to perform last on the 2003 awards show, cut off as the credits were rolling. Surely she too felt offended, people said.

Nope. Monte says she understood the pressures of staging a live broadcast and the commercial considerations that prompt producers to spotlight the most marketable music.

“It’s just a matter of bom scensco [common sense],” she says, cheerfully offering a bite of her cheese quesadilla. “Maybe it’s a talent also, no? There’s a talent to be happy, I guess. Some people have everything [they need to be happy, but they aren’t happy.”

Monte says she maintains her emotional balance through simple habits. She’s a vegetarian and works out regularly, preserving a long, lean and toned figure sensually but elegantly highlighted in a sleek gown during her show. Coffee is the only vice to which she confesses.

She also stays true to herself by doing the music she loves, rather than music calculated to sell.

“My objective in life is not to be a pop star; it’s to be happy,” she says. “That’s why you see a lot of crazy people doing music -- bodies without souls -- because they just want money.... If you don’t respect the music, if you believe too much in your ego, it can be very sad to be a musician.”

By the end of her show Wednesday, an overflowing joy had filled the stately hall. Fans rushed to the stage to be closer to the singer and bask in her light.

agustin.gurza@latimes.com