Tribute to Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) for the 100th anniversary of his birth
María de Buenos Aires
Opera Tango
music Astor Piazzolla
text Horacio Ferrer
Martina Belli mezzosoprano
Ruben Peloni baritone
Daniel Bonilla-Torres El Duende
with the Orchestra Arcangelo Corelli
Davide Vendramin bandoneon
Jacopo Rivani conductor
Fondazione Nazionale della Danza / Aterballetto dance production coordination
MM Contemporary Dance Company performers
Michele Merola choreographer
direction Carlos Branca
assistant director Rosanna Pavarini
lighting designer Marco Cazzola
set designer Giulio Scutellari and Carlos Branca
sketches of costumes Carla Mellini
costumes realization Nuvia Valestri
head tailor Isabella Franzoni
makeup Tobias Tran
stage assistant Chiara Cattani
light designer Mattia Mazzini
stage manager Turchese Sartori
technical direction and production Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara and Fondazione Ravenna Manifestazioni
new coproduction Ravenna Festival and Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara
Italian premiere
with the patronage of Embassy of Argentine Republic in Italy
In the sordid slums of Buenos Aires, Maria, a factory worker, is seduced by the music of the tango and lured into an evil trap that makes her first a tango singer and then a sex worker. She dies, but her spirit walks the city among wastrels, thieves and criminals until she is miraculously reborn to give birth to a daughter, also named Maria, who could be herself in a new life, condemned to the perpetual cycle of things. Latin-American magical realism, ruthless and poetic, infuses Piazzolla’s tango operitamasterpiece, premièred in Buenos Aires in 1968. The wok combines the sacred, the profane and the fantastic in a world where the ill-omened are “born on a day when God was drunk”. And where the tango, hypnotic and irresistible, marks the pace of life and death like a strict judge.
