Portrait
Chavela Vargas
Born
17 April 1919San Joaquín de Flores, Costa Rica
Died
5 August 2012Cuernavaca, Mexico · aged 93
SingerMexico

Chavela Vargas

She transformed rancheras through spare, emotionally charged performances and an unmistakably independent public image.

Chavela Vargas was born in San Joaquín de Flores, Costa Rica, in 1919. She moved to Mexico as a teenager and sang on the streets and in bars before finding a wider audience for her interpretations of rancheras.

Songs often associated with male singers became something different in her voice. Wearing trousers and a poncho, she sang to women without changing the words to fit conventional expectations. Her sparse accompaniment and unhurried delivery made heartbreak sound immediate and personal.

Vargas moved within Mexico’s artistic circles and knew Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Alcohol dependence interrupted her career for years. A return to performing in the 1990s brought new audiences, helped by Pedro Almodóvar’s enthusiasm and his use of her songs in films. She went on to sing at major venues including Carnegie Hall.

Although her attraction to women had long formed part of her public persona, she explicitly came out as a lesbian at 81. That late declaration should not obscure the decades in which she had already challenged expectations through her appearance and work. Vargas died in Mexico in 2012, leaving performances whose force depended as much on restraint as on intensity.

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