Antonette, tiatr diva who reigned since sixties, passes away

Panaji: Before Lorna captivated everyone with her voice and became a household name, no female singer had as big an impact as Antonette Mendes on the hearts of the Konkani-speaking world.
Maria Antonia D’Souza or Antonette Mendes, her stage name, scaled such great heights that Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan once launched her audio cassette and gave an introductory speech in Konkani.She is estimated to have sung more than 5,000 songs, with her performance in popular all-time classics from the sixties like “Amchem Noxib” and “Nirmonn” still on everyone’s minds.
Antonette passed away in Mumbai on Sunday. She was 79 and is survived by her three daughters, Judy, June, and Lara.
“She did not want to join the profession at all, but once she took the plunge, she never looked back,” her younger sister Fatima D’Souza told TOI. “She was pushed into this by our father (A K D’Souza, originally from Goa Velha), who was also an actor and playwright. What a splendid career she had.”
Antonette was based in Mumbai but her work was widely appreciated in Goa, where she worked in tiatrs and staged musical shows.
According to several accounts, including those of her family, M Boyer, a Padma Shri awardee and Goa’s famous singer-composer-director, wrote special roles and cantos (integral songs in tiatrs) for Antonette, knowing only she could deliver them to perfection.
It all started with “Besanv”, and once she delivered a hit performance on debut, it came as no surprise that Antonette’s longest stint with tiatr directors was with Boyer. She also had impressive spells with famous directors like Prem Kumar, J P Souza, Remmie Colaco, Joe Rose, Jacint Vaz, Anil Kumar, and Rosario Rodrigues.
“There was magic in her voice and she had the power to captivate the audience,” said Michael Gracias, who worked with Antonette in Comedian Dominic’s tiatr. “Boyer’s writing and Antonette’s singing were an electric combination that lured audiences to watch the tiatr, specifically for the cantos, again and again,” Gracias said.
Antonette’s first foray into tiatrs started in 1960 when she starred in her father’s tiatr, “Aum To Tarvotti” in Mumbai. She continued to act in tiatrs but it was her singing performances in movies that brought her all-round fame.
In “Amchem Noxib” and “Nirmonn”, Antonette delivered classics like “Tum Nasloi Punn Tuka Sweater Kori” and “Claudia”, songs that touch a chord even to this day. It was also during the shooting of “Nirmonn” that Antonette met Romeo Mendes, who acted as her brother in the film, but later became her life partner.
If there’s any other song that propelled Antonette to the big league, it was “Piti Piti Mog” with the legendary Chris Perry. “She was an excellent singer, no doubt about it, but she did comedy very well too,” said Fatima.
For her superlative efforts, Antonette was conferred the Goa State Cultural Award 2015 by state govt and Lifetime Achievement to Tiatr Award 2009 by the Tiatr Academy Goa.