AMG Review of Chico Buarque & Maria Bethania Ao Vivo

Alvaro Neder
All Music Guide

In 1975, Maria Betânia commemorated ten years of career with a show with Chico Buarque that was released on LP; this is the CD reissue. The album is historic, with classics like "Sinal Fechado" (Paulinho da Viola), "Foi Assim" (Lupicínio Rodrigues), even "Gitâ" (by the late rocker Raul Seixas), along with Buarque's pearls "Olê Olá," "Sem Fantasia," "Sem Açúcar," "Com Açúcar E Com Afeto," and others. Maria Betânia is the personification of the female depicted by Buarque's poetry: intense, dramatic, fragile, powerful, sensuous, aggressive -- contradictory.