Claudette Soares

Claudette Colbert Soares was born in Rio de Janeiro on 31 October 1935. She began singing as a child on radio, first revealed on the Rádio Nacional programme A raia miúda presented by Renato Murce, and then on his talent show Papel carbono, where she imitated the singer Emilinha Borba. She also sang on Clube do Guri on Rádio Mauá.

On Rádio Tupi's Salve o Baião she met Luiz Gonzaga, who called her the Princesinha do Baião, and in the 1950s she co presented No mundo do baião on Rádio Tamoio with Ademilde Fonseca. At the end of the decade Sylvia Telles chose her as her replacement at the Plaza nightclub, where she worked with Luiz Eça, João Donato, Baden Powell and Milton Banana, and she became one of the voices of bossa nova, taking it to São Paulo clubs and to television on Bibi Ferreira's Brasil 60.

Her album A dona da bossa came out in 1964. With Taiguara and the Jongo Trio she made Primeiro tempo 5x0 in 1966, followed by a run of Philips albums up to 1971, including a set of songs by Gil, Chico and Caetano. She sang at the Festival Internacional da Canção in 1966 and 1970. De tanto amor, given to her by Roberto Carlos, became her biggest hit in 1971, and she recorded Tudo isso é amor with Dick Farney in 1976 and 1977. After years with few releases she returned in the 2000s with themed albums produced by Thiago Marques Luiz, toured Paris and Lisbon, and in 2026 released O mundo é ruim para quem não sabe esperar, with new songs written for her by Marcos Valle, Roberto Menescal, Nando Reis, Guilherme Arantes and others.

In 1972 she married the musician Júlio César Figueiredo, with Roberto Carlos as best man; the couple divorced in the 1990s. She was famous for her small stature, 1.49 metres, and joked that she was the smallest singer in Brazil. She lived for many years in São Paulo, which made her an honorary citizen in 1990.

Claudette Soares died in her sleep at her home in São Paulo in the early hours of 13 November 2026, aged 91. She had felt unwell the previous day and cancelled some promotional appearances. The official statement on her social media gave the cause as a sudden illness, and reports described the death as from natural causes. It came on the same day her final album was released.

Critic Mauro Ferreira called her one of the most important singers in Brazil, an artist who crossed generations and movements from baião to bossa nova, Tropicália and romantic song, and whose Philips recordings of the late 1960s were so prized that they were reissued on CD in Japan. She received the Troféu Euterpe in 1966 and the Order of Ipiranga in 2010.