María de Buenos Aires

María de Buenos Aires is a tango opera (tango operita) with music by Ástor Piazzolla.^[1] and libretto by Horacio Ferrer^[2] which premiered at the Sala Planeta in Buenos Aires in May 1968.

The surreal plot centers on a prostitute in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the second half takes place after her death. The characters include María (and, after her death, the Shadow of María), a singer of payadas, various members of the Buenos Aires underworld, a poet narrator who is also a goblin-like duende, several marionettes under his control, and a circus of psychoanalysts. Several elements of the libretto suggest parallels between María and Mary, the mother of Jesus (in Spanish, María) or to Jesus himself.^[1]

While certainly not in the narrow sense an opera ballet, because the dance is tango rather than classical ballet, it falls within the tradition of having set dance pieces integral to an operatic work.^{[citation needed]}

The music draws on the nuevo tango idiom for which Piazzolla is famous.^[1] The original idea for the story was conceived by Piazzolla's then lover, Egle Martin (though she was already married to Eduardo "Lalo" Palacios). The title role was originally conceived for Martin, but while Piazzolla was still composing the operita, he and Martin broke up after he asked her husband for her hand at Christmas in 1967. According to Martin, Piazzolla said to Lalo, "She is music, she can't belong to anybody, no she is music, she is music, and that's me." After their rift a replacement was desperately needed, but Piazzolla soon met folksinger Amelita Baltar at the Buenos Aires nightclub "Nuestro Tiempo", formerly called "676" and once Piazzolla's home base in Argentina. Baltar's identification with the character Maria paired with her beauty and captivating stage presence made her ideal.^{[citation needed]}

The piece is written for at least three vocalists (one of whom, the narrator, speaks rather than singing).^[1] For the orchestration Piazzolla augmented his current working quintet: Piazzolla (bandoneon), Antonio Agri (violin), Jamie "El Russo" Gosis (piano), Oscar Lopez Ruiz (guitar) and Enrique "Kicho" Diaz (bass); with viola, cello, flute, percussion, vibraphone and xylophone, and another guitar. Maria de Buenos Aires has often been performed with dancers as well as the musicians.^{[citation needed]} There are several extant arrangements, including Piazzola's own and one by Pablo Ziegler.^[1]

María de Buenos Aires is seldom staged, though there are occasional concert performances, often incorporating dance. One such was a semi-staged performance the Grand Thermae Villa in Rome in 2003 was recorded and has been released on DVD (Kultur Video). Other recent productions include the Norfolk and Norwich Festival in the United Kingdom (2004), the Teatro nacional de S.Joaõ (Porto) and the Opera São Carlos (Lisbon) in Portugal (2006, 2007, toured to Norway, 2007), the Gotham Chamber Opera at Skirball Center, in New York City (2008), Canberra, Australia (National Multicultural Festival, 2008) and the very successful Teatro di Capua production^[3] (2008) which has been produced in several theatres including the Hermitage Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia, Moscow (where it received two nominations in the Moscow Festival of the Golden Mask in 2009) and the 2010 Edinburgh Festival.

A new fully staged production by Australian dance company Leigh Warren and Dancers and the State Opera of South Australia opened in Adelaide, Australia, on 15 October 2010 ^[4] and performed at the Brisbane Festival in September 2011.^[5]

A new production by Quantum Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA, with musical direction by Andres Cladera and stage direction by Karla Boos, opened 24 March, 2011. ^[6]

The opera was translated to Swedish by Leif Janzon and premiered by the Piteå Chamber Opera on October 15 2011 at Acusticum in Piteå (Sweden).

A new fully staged production by Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, Zagreb, Croatia, was premiered on October 22, 2011, with re-run on October 24. The performance was directed by Mario Kovač, with The Zagreb Soloists under direction of Miran Vaupotić, and Chamber Choir "Ivan Filipović" under direction of Goran Jerković. Bandoneón was played by Aleksandar Nikolić, the recipient of Ástor Piazzolla Award in 2008. The circus acts were performed by the circus company Circorama. The singers were Sandra Rumolino, Jorge Rodriguez and José Luis Baretto.^[7]

Synopsis

The ill-omened María, born "one day when God was drunk" in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires, heads to the center of Buenos Aires, where she is seduced by the music of the tango and becomes a streetwalker. Thieves and brothel keepers, gathered at a black mass resolve her death. After her death, she is condemned to a hell which is the city itself: her Shadow, now walks the city. She has returned to virginity, is impregnated by the word of the goblin poet, and—witnessed by three Construction Worker Magi and The Women Who Knead Pasta—gives birth to a Child María, who may be herself.^[1]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} SCP 2005.
2. ^ Julio Nudler,Horacio Ferrer, Todo Tango. Accessed online, 20 March 2007.
3. ^ Teatro di Capua website
4. ^ State Opera of South Australia website
5. ^ Brisbane Festival 2011 website
6. ^ [1] website
7. ^ Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall website (in Croatian) website

References

• Seattle Chamber Players (SCP), "María de Buenos Aires" performance program, 2005

External links

• Entire Operita with Ballet, with Sandra Rumolino as Maria
• Tangus Dei, a video recording. Ensemble: Seattle Chamber Players, soloists: Pablo Zinger (USA), Leonardo Granados, tenor (Venezuela); Alexander Mitenev, bandoneon (Russia) [2] Russia).
• Maria de Buenos Aires, a video recording. Astorpia Tango Quintet
• Fuga y misterio (Fugue and Mystery), a video recording. Ensemble: Kremerata Baltica, soloists: Gidon Kremer, violin (Latvia); Andrei Pushkarev, vibraphone ( [3] Ukraine).