Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Maria de Buenos Aires - Cambra XX, Again

In May of this year, this blog enthused about Pablo Zinger's 2009 production in Valencia of Piazzolla's operita, Maria de Buenos Aires. Zinger brought the production back on stage last month at the Teatro Serrano in Gandia and the videos of that production have just started to arrive on YouTube. I won't repeat here what I said in the May blog but just remind you that this may well be the best production of Maria since the original in 1968. Zinger just keeps getting better and better.

The Gandia production appears to be very similar to the one in Valencia. The vocalists are the same, staging seems the same and most of the orchestra is the same. But there are differences: a new narrator, Leonardo Granados - he's good, but a narrator with a little more gravitas would be better; new dancers and choreography - more aggressive and interesting; and, an oboe has been added to the orchestra - not an instrument found in Piazzolla's original production but Zinger has orchestrated it in beautifully and I view it as an improvement over the original.

As I write this, there are six videos from the production on YouTube and I hope there will be more. The entire production is not there yet. You can find the set of videos on Robert Turlo's YouTube channel (incidentally, Turlo is the artistic director of the production and also the oboist). I have chosen to display the introductory video below because it includes an introduction by Zinger but most of the music resides in the other five videos. The quality of the video is quite high, suggesting perhaps a DVD is on the way. I certainly hope so - I would like to add it to my permanent collection.

If the video does not appear below, click here.



To learn more about Piazzolla videos, visit the Piazzolla Video site.

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1 comment:

  1. Piazzolla is an amazing tango musician; I had the opportunity to attend to his tango show in Buenos Aires, and it was something unbelievable and unforgettable! I book this show through http://bsas4u.com/ an agency that a friend of mine recommended me, and who made this incredible experience something possible. I could say that this incredible activity allowed me to understand the passion of the country for tango music.

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