María de Buenos AiresNew production

Born “on a day when God was drunk” in a shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, María heads for the heart of Argentina’s metropolis, where she is entranced by the music of the tango and becomes a sex worker. Thieves and brothel owners, gathered at a black mass, resolve to kill her. After her death, she is condemned to Hell, which is the city itself; her Shadow now haunts the city. Once again a virgin, she is impregnated by the word of the duende and, under the eyes of the Three Wise Men who work in the building industry and the women who knead pasta, she gives birth to a child, María, who may be herself. No, this is not a short story by Victoria Ocampo or even a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, this is the tango-opera María de Buenos Aires. After Einstein on the Beach in 2019, the Swiss-Italian and international duendes of Daniele Finzi Pasca’s Compania, creators of the last edition of the spectacular Fête des Vignerons, have come back to tell us this surreal South American story

María de Buenos Aires is a tango operetta with a score by Ástor Piazzolla. The music is based on the nuevo tango idiom for which Piazzolla is famous. The folk singer Amelita Baltar, a nightclub star frequented by Piazzolla, with her captivating beauty and stage presence, crête the role. This operita in two parts of eight songs each was composed by the composer for his quintet of the time consisting of himself on bandoneon, violin, guitar, piano and double bass. Piazzolla added another guitar, viola, cello, flute and percussion to the orchestration.

With Uruguay native Hugo Gargiulo as stage designer, the Compania Finzi Pasca moves into the fabulously Belle Époque architecture of the River Plate megalopolis. The set will be a more than authentic vision of Buenos Aires, since it has been lived, dreamed, extrañada* and above all put into motion and – spoiler alert! – on ice, by the acrobats, dancers, tightrope walkers and storytellers who amazed you with their retelling of Einstein on the Beach. All the solo roles will be played by women, an inverted homage to the tradition that tango was originally danced between men. Our María is a cross-dressing tango or simply a queer tango that seeks to free itself from imposed gender codes. Portuguese soprano Raquel Camarinha, whose vocal purity pierces and moves the heart, will take on the title role, Inés Cuello, star of the tango scene in Argentina, and the Orchestre de la Haute école de musique de Genève, along with a few guest stars such as the bandoneon player Marcelo Nisinman, will perform María‘s mystical and mysterious milonga of under the direction of the porteño conductor Facundo Agudín.

*Missed, litterally “estranged”