Cordoaria · Porto
A male and a female singer share an hour of fado with two guitars in a century-old Porto room, wine included.
The concert runs in two sets, with the story of fado told only at the end.
Worth it? The answer first
In short. Yes, if you want an hour that is all music. The concert is a seated hour of live fado in two sets, sung by a man and a woman with a guitarra and a classical guitar at their side, a glass of Portuguese wine in your hand, and a brief talk on the history of fado at the very end in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. Porto has plenty of rooms where fado is sung; what sets this one apart is that pairing of two voices across two sets, the four-language talk, and the chance to speak with the musicians afterwards. The building is not step-free and the concert is not open to under-sixes.
Sixty minutes of acoustic fado in a small room in central Porto, in two parts, with the talk saved for the end. One glass of wine is poured for you so that it does not interrupt the singing. When the last song ends, the musicians stay to talk.
No dinner comes with it, and no food at all. Nor is it a staged show with lights, dancers or a narrator, and nobody explains each song as it comes; the introduction to fado is short and comes last. The glass of wine is a single glass, not a pour that keeps going.
Inside a fado house
Nobody hands you a list of house rules at a fado concert, yet regulars keep the same habits, and knowing them makes the hour easier to enjoy. These are the customs that fado houses keep, set out with their sources. None of them describes this concert’s own running order or songs, which belong to the musicians and change.
The call
The line means “silence, fado is about to be sung”. Fado houses use it to hush the room before a singer starts, and Portuguese Wikipedia notes that some credit it to Filipe Pinto, a fadista who was one of the most popular presenters of his day. When you hear it, or simply see the guitarists settle, conversation stops.
The hush
From the 1930s, the Fado Museum in Lisbon explains, hearing fado turned into a ritual of its own inside the fado houses of the old quarters, the Bairro Alto above all. The custom that survives is simple: no talking, no clinking and no phones held up during a song. Applause and conversation wait until the final note has faded.
The shawl
Portuguese Wikipedia describes the professional fadista of the 20th-century fado houses as dressed in black, “like the darkness of the silent night”. The shawl belongs to the same picture: the Fado Museum gave its very first temporary exhibition to the shawl and its importance in the fadista’s world. You may well see one drawn around a singer’s shoulders.
Two guitars
In UNESCO’s description one singer, a man or a woman, is joined by an acoustic guitar strung with wire and by the guitarra, the twelve-string, pear-bodied cittern found only in Portugal. English Wikipedia says that in the Lisbon manner the guitarra opens alone and then trades phrases with the singer, call against response, while the viola, the acoustic guitar, carries harmony and beat.
The voice
English Wikipedia picks out rubato as fado’s particular trait: as a phrase closes, the guitars stop and let the singer stretch the last note. Much of the drama sits in those suspended endings. Watch the guitarists; they wait on the singer, not on a count.
Coimbra
Fado has a second tradition, from Coimbra. Wikipedia explains that it is tied to the city’s university, sung only by men who wear the student dress of dark robe and cape, at night and almost in the dark, in squares and on the steps of the Old Cathedral. Its guitar is built differently and tuned lower than the Lisbon model.
Sources: UNESCO’s 2011 inscription of fado; the Fado Museum, Lisbon (history pages and exhibitions); English and Portuguese Wikipedia articles on fado, the Portuguese guitar and Filipe Pinto.
From the door to the last chord
Start times differ by date and are printed in the calendar and on your voucher. The songs are the musicians’ choice and change from night to night; what follows is the outline every hour shares, not a set list.
Arriving
You meet beside the Cordoaria garden and the Clérigos tower; the voucher gives the exact spot. Staff are there to help you.
First part
The guitars start, a singer begins, and the room goes quiet. Your glass of wine is served so that it never cuts across a song.
Second part
Both parts belong to the same pair, a man and a woman, with the same two guitars beside them. How they divide the songs is theirs to decide; the pairing is the heart of this concert.
Last minutes
Only now does someone explain fado’s history and meaning, in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. It is short; the guides on this site go further.
Afterwards
Stay a moment and you can talk to the singers and guitarists. Questions about the guitarra are a good place to start.
Two centuries in six steps
Fado’s early years were handed down by word of mouth, so its history mixes firm dates with a good deal of legend. These six points rest on the sources named below.
1780s
English Wikipedia traces the Portuguese guitar to the cittern. A new kind, the so-called English guitar, reached Portugal around 1750, and by 1786 those made by the luthier Simpson were in high demand. Porto’s new merchant class took it up for music at home, long before fado claimed it.
1820s
According to the musicologist Rui Vieira Nery, whose words Wikipedia quotes, what can be trusted about fado’s past was handed down by mouth and reaches back no further than the 1820s and 1830s. The genre itself may be older; its roots are disputed.
1840s
Maria Severa Onofriana, born in Lisbon in 1820 and dead of tuberculosis at 26 in 1846, is regarded as the first fado singer to become famous. She sang and played the Portuguese guitar in Lisbon’s taverns, and her story became the first Portuguese sound film in 1931.
1930s
After a 1927 decree regulated public shows, performers needed licences and approved repertoires. In the Fado Museum’s account, the 1930s above all made the fado house, clustered in Lisbon’s old quarters and especially the Bairro Alto, the ritual home of the song.
1950s
With the composer Alain Oulman, Amália Rodrigues brought the verse of published poets into fado, and fado’s reach abroad grew around her. In Coimbra the same decade, student singers turned to ballads and poetry as a form of resistance to the dictatorship.
2011
In 2011 UNESCO added fado to its list of humanity’s intangible heritage, calling it a genre that weds music to poetry, and a Portuguese blend of sung dances, rural song and the urban songs of the early nineteenth century.
Sources: English Wikipedia (Fado; Portuguese guitar; Maria Severa Onofriana; the Coimbra tradition), the Fado Museum’s history of fado, and UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage page on fado.
Ticket terms, plainly
Every term worth knowing before you book, in one list.
Fado or tuk-tuk
Around the Cordoaria
The garden and tower beside the meeting point, the station most visitors pass through, and places the other cards on this page will take you to.
Fado first, then the rest of Porto
The concert is the first card. Next to it sit the tuk-tuk and river ride it is compared with below, a full day in the Douro wine country and a day trip north to Braga and Guimarães. Every card opens the calendar for that trip alone.
An hour of live fado in two sets from one male and one female singer, backed by a guitarra and a six-string classical guitar, a glass of Portuguese wine, and a short talk on fado at the end. Not for under-sixes or wheelchair users.
About 50 minutes by electric tuk-tuk past the cathedral, São Bento and the Clérigos tower, with an optional 55-minute rabelo cruise under the six bridges, sailing in daytime hours on an open ticket.
A guided day from Porto to the terraced Douro valley: tastings at a family estate and a second wine estate, a one-hour river cruise at Pinhão, and a winery lunch on the full-day option.
About nine hours in the Minho with a guide: the Bom Jesus do Monte stairway, Braga’s old centre and cathedral, then the castle and medieval streets of Guimarães. Lunch is not included on the shared tour.
Other Porto bookings worth a look
Before you head to the Cordoaria
Beside the Cordoaria garden and the Clérigos tower, in the old centre of Porto. Visible across much of the city, the tower is a handy marker; the exact spot is on your voucher.
São Bento railway station, inside the historic centre, is a short walk away. Porto is hilly: leave a margin and choose shoes that hold on stone pavements.
Wheelchair users cannot be accommodated, and the old building has stairs. Anyone who struggles with them should write to the club through GetYourGuide first.
Under-sixes cannot come. Older children are welcome, but an hour of quiet listening asks a lot of a restless ten-year-old.
Your voucher on your phone, then switch the phone to silent. Recording services and professional photos are excluded from the ticket, and fado is better heard than filmed.
When the musicians have finished talking, the Baixa, Porto’s lower town, is a short walk away for dinner.
Before the first song
FAQ
For most first-time listeners, yes. You get an hour of live fado from two singers, a man and a woman, backed by the twelve-string guitarra and a classical guitar, plus a glass of wine and a short talk about fado at the end. It is a concert, not a dinner or a staged show, and the building is not step-free.
One hour, in two parts. The singers share the two sets, the wine is served without interrupting the songs, and the introduction to fado comes in the last minutes. Each date has its own start, shown in the booking calendar and repeated on the voucher.
At the end, after the music, in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. It is brief: a few minutes on the history and meaning of fado, not a commentary on each song. If you want more before you go, start with this site’s listening guide.
No. The ticket includes one glass of Portuguese wine and no food. Eat before or after; the Baixa, Porto’s lower town, is a short walk away and full of places to eat.
Children under six cannot attend. Older children are welcome, though the concert asks for an hour of near silence, so it suits children who already enjoy live music.
No. Wheelchairs cannot be accommodated, and the building, about a century old, has steps. If climbing stairs is difficult for someone in your party, write to the club through GetYourGuide before you book.
Beside the Cordoaria garden and the Clérigos tower in Porto’s old centre; the voucher pins down the exact spot. São Bento railway station is within walking distance.
Give at least a day’s notice through GetYourGuide and the full price is returned. Payment itself can wait: the booking lets you hold the seat first and pay nearer the date.
Keep phones down while a song lasts; silence is the custom in any fado house, and recordings are not part of the ticket. After the last song you can talk to the singers and guitarists.
An independent writer, not the club. This site is not the club’s or the concert organisers’ website and has no affiliation with either. Bookings made from this guide go through GetYourGuide, and some earn this site a modest commission; what you pay does not change.