This was the first TV Globo soap opera to be exported, to 30 countries among them the United States, opening the foreign market to Brazilian television products, especially the European market through Portugal.
It was inspired by the writer's own play, entitled 'Odorico, o Bem-Amado' (Odorico, the Beloved) or 'Os Mistérios do Amor e da Morte' (The Mysteries of Love and Death), written in 1962.
The author used the telenovela to satirize the then in power military regime and the plot had 37 episodes cut by censorship.
It was the first Brazilian telenovela produced in color.