Maria de Buenos Aires
| Work data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Maria de Buenos Aires |
| Shape: | Opera |
| Music: | Astor Piazzolla |
| Libretto : | Horacio Ferrer |
| Premiere: | May 8, 1968 |
| Place of premiere: | Buenos Aires |
| Playing time: | 90 minutes |
| Place and time of the action: | Buenos Aires before and in the 20th century |
| people | |
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María de Buenos Aires is an opera in 16 pictures by the composer Astor Piazzolla and the librettist Horacio Ferrer . Piazzolla himself described this work as "Tango Operita". This play had its concert premiere on May 8, 1968 in Buenos Aires with Amelita Baltar (María) and Horacio Ferrer (Duende).
action
First part
It's night in Buenos Aires. The ghost conjures up the forgotten voice of Maria through a crack in the asphalt of the road . Mary listens to the incantation of the Spirit and appears as a human being through her voice. She sings a wordless subject of tango, which is her language.
The spirit begins, accompanied by the voice of a Payador and the voices of the men who have returned from the sanctuary to tell Marías story that was born under a bad luck star. She came from the suburbs; two weeping angels carried her and scratched her name on the last wall with brown balls: María. She grew up in seven days, restless, goddess and good-for-nothing at the same time. The story closes with the words: "Sad María of Buenos Aires ... You are forgotten among all women."
María introduces herself: "I am María ... María Tango, María of the suburbs, María night, María fatale passion, María of love for Buenos Aires, I am!"
A dreaming Bonaeren Gorrión describes María's origins and her dreary life in the suburbs. He is the first to love María and he prophesies that she will go away. She rejects him almost indifferently: "Dreaming Buonaerenser Gorrión, you will never reach me ... I am the rose of someone I do not love you, you will never again reach me." its always going to be heard.
After the prophecy of Gorrión, María actually goes away and leaves her previous environment. She walks aimlessly and in silence through the city. María admits her meaningless life in the midst of lust and emptiness and foresees her imminent death.
The ghost brings an indictment to the Bandoneón , accusing María of corrupting and hurting. He angrily splits the bandoneón in two.
In the meantime, María has descended into the city's underworld. The old thieves and old whore mothers have already expected them after their leader's announcement and are celebrating a grotesque mass “very in minor” on this occasion , at which misfortune and wine are provided for them. María comes to the thieves in the dark. Her body is condemned to death by the leader of the thieves, but her shadow is said to continue to walk the earth where the sun will injure him, without God's assistance. María sings her theme softly and plaintively as at the beginning, while the transition to her “own hell” takes place on her. The old mother whores finally find out that their heart is dead.
Second part
The ghost portrays the first death and the bizarre burial of María. The girls from the weaving factory put a polyamide mallow and a percale orchid on their hearse , and two beggars bury her in the coffee grounds of an espresso. María cries for the first time.
After her body is buried, the shadow of Maria, true to the prediction of the Ancient Leader of Thieves Lost, wanders through Buenos Aires with no memory of who it once belonged to.
The memoryless shadow writes in "April of my total sadness" to the trees and chimneys that protect him from the sun. He asks not to give up the memory of him. In a brief moment of fleeting memory, he signs “The Shadow of Marías”.
María's shadow ends up in a circle of absurd psychoanalysts who want to refresh his memory. Under the guidance of the first psychoanalyst, four questions about his mother, his father, his first kiss and his heart are tried to revive his memory. From the confused scraps of memory that the shadow utters, however, they cannot put together a proper picture. María only remembers one mystery: “From the endless gray of the day before yesterday I remember nothing more than that cruel mystery that screamed to me: Come to light! - and when I came into life it laughed ... and finally, when it saw me like this, so definitely and so I, it screamed, biting itself, terribly: Die ...! "
Meanwhile, the ghost sits drunk in the "magic bar of good luck charms". The three puppets, drunk with things, who are with him hear of his grief over the loss of María. The ghost wants to bring María back and finally convinces the puppets enough that they go out to deliver a miracle to María. The Spirit prophesies that it will be a Sunday when Maria will be resurrected.
The three puppets, drunk with things, go out with their entourage in search of María and deliver the miracle of fertility to her. All over town, puppets, clay angels, street musicians and other characters are frantically looking for a seed for María's child.
The shadow of Maria was eventually found by the puppets. They put a violet in his mouth and a large patch of fennel and sisal flowers stuffed into his hip. A clay angel binds him with a jasmine "a son of milk over the bodice". He clearly feels the power to give birth rising in him and defiantly postulates that if no one wants to be born of him anymore, he will nurse a boot in his arms.
The spirit and a voice of that Sunday first describe the normal Sunday, which is slowly falling apart. The pasta waltzers' hands shake in the dough, the olives in the aperitifs turn into golden stars, and the ghost draws attention to the shadow of Maria, who is standing in the framework of a thirtieth floor and is beginning to give birth. The shadow of María sings a Christmas carol from afar. But he does not give birth to a baby Jesus, and the women are shocked to discover that it is a girl. The angels then go out crying to get drunk. Everyone is wondering if this girl is now the born again María or not. The end of the operita leaves this question open and closes with the prayer-like formula of the voice of that Sunday and the spirit: "Our Mary of Buenos Aires ... you are forgotten among all women."
Emergence
In 1948 Horacio Ferrer , an admirer of Piazzolla, met his idol personally. Ferrer's first volume of poetry was published in 1967, and Piazzolla was taken with Ferrer's poetry: “You achieve the same in poetry as I do in music. From now on we will compose together. Think about a material for musical-lyric theater. ”Ferrer then provided the template for María and suggested using different styles according to the development of the main character. Piazzolla was enthusiastic and retired to Uruguay in 1968, where he began to work. In 1968 he completed it in Buenos Aires.
music
According to her background, the music of María de Buenos Aires is based on the most diverse styles of tango as well as its predecessors Milonga and Canyengue up to the Tango Nuevo by Astor Piazzolla. Accordingly, the work is a pure number opera in which vocal numbers, interrupted again and again by speaking parts of the duende or the choir, alternate with instrumental interludes.
In doing so, Piazzolla repeatedly refers to the means of classical formal language, incorporates a toccata , a fugue , oratorio-like parts into the operita and mixes them with jazz or bar music elements, cabaret (Aria de los Analistas), ballet and the aforementioned tango -Root.
The cast is more of a chamber music nature and is based on the style of a tango ensemble, which usually includes a bandonéon or accordion, a piano, at least one violin or strings and percussion.
The Fuga y misterio has become one of the most famous instrumental extracts from this piece. The most famous singing number is Yo soy María , in which María introduces herself spiritedly.
“María” and “La Sombra de María” are sung by the same singer. The tenor roles were performed by the same singer himself in the world premiere and in the recording by Teldec with Horacio Ferrer. A mixed speaking choir takes on the following groups:
- Voces de los Hombres que volvieron del Misterio (Voices of the men who have returned from the mystery)
- Voces de los Ladrones Antiguos (Voices of the Old Thieves)
- Voces de las viejas Madamas (Voices of the old mother whores)
- Voces de los Analistas (Voices of the Psychoanalysts)
- Voces de las Tres Marionetas Borrachas de Cosas (Voices of the Three Puppets Drunk by Things)
- Voces de las Amasadoras de Tallarines (Voices of the noodle waltzes)
- Voces de los Tres Albaniles Magos (Voices of the Three Magical Masons)
Reception history
María de Buenos Aires was performed a further one hundred and twenty times after the premiere. Today it is under the patronage of the Argentine Ministry of Culture. The Italian singer Milva first dared to play the role of María in 1999. Through the initiative of the violinist Gidon Kremer , Teldec recorded a recording with Horacio Ferrer in the role of Duende, which he had not taken on since the first series of performances.
With the production by Katja Czellnik , the Kiel Opera brought a scenic implementation on the stage on October 3, 1999 under its director at the time, Kirsten Harms , which can be considered the initial spark for subsequent productions in Germany. In addition to the Puerto Rican Daniel Bonilla-Torres as Duende, who later appeared in this role with Milva in her touring version, the bass-baritone Matthias Klein sang the cantor and the mezzo-soprano Jennifer Arnold the María. Bernd Damovsky created the equipment . This production was also shown at the Komische Oper Berlin in 2006 .
In 2003 the play premiered in a production by Ben Van Cauwenbergh at the Hessian State Theater Wiesbaden , the role of Duende was taken on by the well-known Argentine actor and solo dancer Gabriel Sala , the role of Maria was sung by Brigitte Heitzer , the male vocal parts Axel Mendrok took over .
In May 2007 Maria de Buenos Aires premiered at the Dortmund Opera House . In October 2010 the Ulm Theater performed the play. In August 2019 the Operita premiered in the Lübeck Theater .
Recordings / sound carriers
- TROVA August 1968: Amelita Baltar, Hector de Rosas, Horacio Ferrer, Astor Piazzolla a. a. TLS-5020/2
- Dynamic 1997: Vittorio Antonelli, I Solisti Aquilani a. a. CDS 185 / 1-2
- Teldec / East West 1998: Gidon Kremer, Horacio Ferrer u. a. 3984-20632-2
- Capriccio 2019: Luciana Mancini, Daniel Bonilla-Torres u. a. C5305
literature
- Sonia Alejandra López: "Maria de Buenos Aires". A monograph of the Tango-Operita by Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer . (Eichstätter treatises on musicology; Vol. 14). Schneider, Tutzing 2003, ISBN 3-7952-1078-X (plus dissertation, University of Eichstätt 2000)
Web links
- About "MARIA DE BUENOS AIRES" by Astor Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer. Review of a performance from 2002 in Cologne on milvalarossa.it , accessed on December 11, 2014.
- marÍa de buenos aires at the Dortmund Opera House ( memento from January 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Feldhoff: "Maria de Buenos Aires" - premiere in Lübeck on ln-online.de, August 26, 2019, accessed on March 1, 2020.