Brazilian-born actor and vocalist Darwin Del Fabro, who is best known in the U.S. for starring opposite Kevin Bacon in the 2022 Blumhouse slasher film They/Them, recently released their debut album, Revisiting Elis Regina.
Singing in Portuguese, Del Fabro reinterprets the iconic singer’s classics such as “Atrás da porta” (“Behind the Door”), “Casa no campo” (“Country House”), “Tatuagem” (“Tattoo”), and others in their understated vocal delivery with powerful emotional currents.
Regina, considered among South America’s pioneering and influential artists, discovered and encouraged the finest songwriters in Brazilian popular music. She taught the next generations of singers the combination of lightness and sensuality, supple rhythms, and melting emotion, and her legacy was recently highlighted in the lauded documentary, Elis & Tom: It Had to Be You, which was released in theaters last fall after making a splash in the 2023 AFI Latin American Film Festival.
The idea to revisit Regina’s fabled repertoire is closely linked to Del Fabro’s desire to find themself again in Brazil, eight years after moving to New York.
“I came back to rediscover and embrace a version of myself that I had left behind,” they explain. “I wanted to channel my experiences of being a nonbinary person in Rio into singing the complex narratives and blissful melodies of Elis Regina’s hits. Returning to my mother tongue while performing the songs of the greatest singer of her time is a dream come true.”
Revisiting Elis Regina was produced by two-time Latin Grammy Award-nominated pianist, singer, and arranger Delia Fischer, and is now available on all digital and streaming platforms.
Instinct had the pleasure of talking more about the album and its meaningfulness with Del Fabro, as well their overall passion for entertaining, the influential impact of They/Them, and additional upcoming projects.
Check out the full video interview below.
Darwin Del Fabro…
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