Customer Reviews

Maria De Buenos Aires - Opera Tango / Astor Piazzolla

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had not come across much of Astor Piazzolla's work before, so this was all the more wonderful a surprise. This exceedingly poetic, extraordinarily poignant operetta about a doomed prostitute contains a great deal of very beautiful music, and it's highlighted by the performance of some splendid tango dancers. I like the intensity of the narrator (I believe her words were originally to be spoken by a goblin); her appearance and expression, like those of the two principal singers, and the muttering chorus, accent the tone and atmosphere of the piece - a kind of brooding, occasionally ominous, but consistently lovely progression. The bandoneon, apparently key to much of Piazzolla's music, is superb, as are the other instruments; flute played by a willowy beauty, accomplished guitar, piano, violins and percussion. And I enjoyed the glamor and style of the dancers very much. Really a lovely and moving performance.

The first reviewer's comments seem very harsh. Was it indigestion? I haven't been exposed to a tremendous amount of work by the late, greatly admired Astor Piazzolla, but I am certainly enjoying the music, drama and dance of this piece, and have already watched it three times. To my eye and ear, the singers and dancers communicate considerable poignancy and drama, and the piece moves along pretty seamlessly. The players all look the part and the music - and narration - is moving.

It's true there isn't a lot of information included about the recording, but I see in the opening credits that this was filmed in 2003.

Incredible bad!! The singers are the wrong ones (and not very good to be polite), the pronunciation is awful (at points it sounds more Italian than the expected Buenos Aires Spanish accent) the dancers are not very good, and there is an absolute sense the everyone on stage wants to go home as soon as possible. To make things worse, it appears that Kultur wants to hide as much as possible from this production, no date, no details, no description, nothing!! We will have to wait for a "Real" production of this wonderful Operita (little opera) to appear on DVD.