The Girls From Brazil; A crop of silky new vocalists is breaking rules while remaining true to the country's musical traditions.

Byline: Mac Margolis

At a glance, Daniela Procopio would not likely pass for a diva of the Brazilian stage. Petite and with a timid smile, she lacks the commanding presence of pop singer Marisa Monte, who played to packed houses on her recent U.S. tour, never mind the bangles and towering platform shoes that turned pixie Carmen Miranda into a luminous giantess. But when Procopio breaks into song--say, "Quase Lenda," a duet with celebrated Brazilian showman Carlinhos Brown--and her voice surges from a murmur to a lush, torrential soprano, the doubters might do well to sit up and listen.

Though hardly a household name, Procopio, 33, a former industrial designer who took up professional singing only four years ago, has already made a mark in the Bra-zilian club scene and drawn praise from the country's musical elite. In addition to Brown, artists such as clarinetist Paulo Moura and guitarist Toninho Horta--not to mention the multiple-Grammy-winning composer and arranger Eumir Deodato--pitched in on her maiden CD, to be launched in the coming months on an independent label. "Daniela's got drive and a spectacular voice," says the New York-based Deodato, who has worked for megastars like Roberta Flack, George Benson and Bjork. "Judging by her, you can expect a lot more good things coming out of Brazil."

Indeed, Procopio is just one of a chorus of new vocal artists trying to break into the business in a country where legends already crowd the stage. Every generation has its exalted few, but Brazil seems to harvest fresh talent every few years. Just this decade at least a dozen promising female vocalists have captured the national spotlight. Among the best of them, a handful of twentysomething singers--Mariana Aydar, Maria Rita, CeU, Roberta SA--are reinterpreting Brazilian classics with velvet vocals and arrangements that move freely from samba and reggae to pop and rock. That makes it all the tougher for newcomers like Procopio--and all the better for the rest of us.

A few members of the new Brazilian wave, like Maria Rita, 29--daughter of the famous singer Elis Regina and the equally famous composer Cesar Camargo Mariano--were born into music's royalty. Others, like Roberta SA, 25, came out of nowhere. Fresh from journalism school, she had five live shows and a demo CD to her name when a samba track (Dorival Cayimmi's "A Vizinha do Lado") that she recorded for a Brazilian soap opera became a national hit. "Everything happened in such a rush," says SA, who still seems dizzied by it all. For her part, the 26-year-old Sao Paulo singer Mariana Aydar spent one year in France and a month at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, searching for something different, only to come hurrying back home. "In Brazil there's a spontaneity and a joy to life that allows you to be creative," she says. "I think my Brazilianness blossomed abroad."

Who could blame her? Every nation has its treasured music, but few match Brazil's breadth and blend of styles, rhythms and songs. From bossa nova to baiao, and forro to afoxe, five centuries of mingling by ...