Astor Piazzolla’s tango opera tells the story of Maria, the young prostitute who “was born on the day God was drunk.” As Maria falls in love with tango, she is pulled into a surreal world that blurs religion, dance and rebirth. This site-specific opera will be performed at Le Maison Rouge, the sexy burlesque hall located in Paris on Ponce on the BeltLine. Composer Astor Piazzolla was hailed for his ability to enchant audiences with his tango music and introduce them to new worlds. This immersive production will pull you into the performance and leave you begging for more.
General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun will direct and Jorge Parodi will conduct. Catalina Cuervo sings the lead role of Maria.
Performed in Spanish with English supertitles
Le Maison Rouge at Paris on Ponce
Production sponsored by Mr. & Mrs. Ronald R. Antinori
Opera’s Night Out
Young professionals enjoy a pre-show cocktail hour + ticket to the show
$40 for Under 40
Synopsis
The tale opens on Duende (the Narrator) who relates the story of Maria, a prostitute born in the slums “one day when God was drunk … with a curse in her voice.” Maria is seduced by the rhythms of the tango and soon becomes “the most sorcerous singer and lover” in Buenos Aires.
However, her “fatal passion” arouses the wrath of robbers and brothel madams who shoot her to death, and bury her in an unmarked grave. In death, Maria is pulled into a dreamlike Hell where she encounters the choral circus of psychoanalysts who dissect her to the core.
She makes a resurrection of sorts when the Duende summons her to return as a Shadow, give birth to a new Maria, and haunt the sordid streets of Buenos Aires which she once walked.
Characters & Cast
Maria
a beautiful prostitute born in the slums of Buenos Aires
Catalina Cuervo
Known as the “Fiery Soprano,” Colombian-born Catalina Cuervo holds the distinction of having performed the most performances of Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires.
El Duende
the spirit
Milton Loayza
Actor and Director Milton Loayza has sung with top opera companies around the world.
El Payador
the storyteller
Luis Orozco
Mexican American baritone Luis Alejandro Orozco is known as the leading interpreter in the United States for the role of El Payador in Piazzolla’s Maria de Buenos Aires.
Sponsored by the Molly Blank Fund of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation
The Discoveries series
The Discoveries series is dedicated to audience members who are seeking new works, new ideas and fresh perspectives. These are not your standard operas.
Locations
As part of The Opera’s effort to bring opera to new audiences all over Atlanta, these productions are performed in exciting alternative venues that we don’t traditionally perform opera in.
Supertitles
Many operas are in a foreign language. Supertitles are similar to subtitles in a film, except they are projected above the stage. These translations will help you follow what’s happening on stage.
What to Wear
There is no dress code at The Opera and you will see everything from jeans to evening gowns and formal suits. Most people use it as a chance to enjoy dressing up in their own style.
Arriving in Good Time
If you are late, you will have to sit the first act in the back and then in the intermission ushers will show you to your seat. Plan ahead to arrive with extra time.
Enhance Your Visit
Backstory
Discoveries series performances include events either before or after the performance. As part of the Backstory program, these experiences allow audience members to learn more about the opera, open a conversation around important topics, and participate with the cast in conversation, dancing, and many other formats. Free for ticket holders.
Familiarizing Yourself with the Story
Because of the foreign languages, classical music, and often complex plots, you will very likely enjoy the performance better if you spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with the story and characters in advance. Some people even like to listen to the music in advance and others prefer to let it wash over them during the show and perhaps look it up afterwards.
Composer
Astor Piazzolla
(1921-1992)
Piazzolla was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on March 11, 1921. His parents were poor Italian immigrants who moved to New York City in 1924, affording the young Piazzolla extensive exposure to jazz artists like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. His father also played tango records by the early masters, especially the legendary vocalist/composer Carlos Gardel, and gave Astor a bandoneon for his ninth birthday. In addition to lessons on that instrument (which encompassed American music, like Gershwin, as well as tango), Piazzolla also studied with classical pianist Bela Wilda in 1933, becoming an ardent fan of Bach and Rachmaninoff. Around the same time, the budding prodigy met and played with Carlos Gardel, appearing as a newspaper boy in Gardel’s watershed tango film El Dia que Me Quieras. The teenaged Piazzolla turned down an offer to tour South America with Gardel in 1935, a fortuitous decision that kept him out of the tragic plane crash that claimed Gardel’s life.
Librettist
Horacio Ferrer
(1933-2014)
Ferrer was born in Montevideo into an educated family, son of Horacio Ferrer Perez, a Professor of History, and Alicia Escurra Francini, who was 11 years older than his father and spoke four languages. He had a close relationship with his brother, Eduardo, to whom he dedicated several of his lyrics.
The family paid frequent visits to his mother’s brother in Buenos Aires, Argentina where Ferrer learnt to play tangos on the guitar by ear. Later his uncle would introduce him to the bohemian nightlife of the city.
He studied architecture and engineering for eight years but never graduated. In the 1950s, when he was in his early 20s, he helped to produce the weekly radio programme Seleccion de Tangos in Montevideo which aimed to promote new developments in tango. Out of the programme grew El Club de la Guardia Nueva which he founded in Buenos Aires in 1954 to organise concerts in Montevideo for those musicians who were helping to revolutionise tango, such as Aníbal Troilo, Horacio Salgán and particularly Astor Piazzolla and his famous Octeto Buenos Aires. Ferrer’s first meeting with Piazzolla in 1955, after Piazzolla returned from France, would prove an important turning point in Ferrer’s life.
Conductor
Jorge Parodi
Reviewed as having “the most expressive conducting hands since Stokowski’s,” (New York Daily News) Argentinean-born conductor Jorge Parodi has worked as conductor at Buenos Aires Lírica (Argentina), The Banff Centre (Canada), Tsaritsynskaya Opera Volgograd (Russia), Encuentros Internacionales de Opera (Mexico), Hofstra University and New York University among others; and as coach or repetiteur at several prestigious institutions, including the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Opera Tampa, Connecticut Grand Opera, Lake George Opera Festival to name a few. He has collaborated with such artists as Tito Capobianco, Sherrill Milnes, and Rufus Wainwright; and he has assisted conductors of the caliber of Lorin Maazel and Julius Rudel.
Stage Director
Tomer Zvulun
General and Artistic Director of The Atlanta Opera since 2013, Tomer Zvulun is also one of opera’s most exciting stage directors, earning consistent praise for his creative vision, often described as cinematic and fresh. His work has been presented by prestigious opera houses around the world, including The Metropolitan Opera, the opera companies of Seattle, San Diego, Dallas, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Buenos Aires, Wexford, New Orleans, Minnesota and Wolf Trap, as well as leading educational institutes and universities such as The Juilliard School, Indiana University, Boston University, and IVAI in Tel Aviv. His debut in New York was in a new production of L’heure espagnole and Gianni Schicchi at Juilliard Opera Center that was praised by The New York Times for its “witty, fast-paced staging and the director’s Felliniesque style.”
Known for creating innovative, visually striking new interpretations for standard operas as well as championing new works by contemporary composers, his work has been seen internationally in Europe, South and Central America, Israel, and the US. Recently he created critically acclaimed new productions of Semele (Seattle Opera) Lucia di Lammermoor (Seattle, Atlanta, Cleveland), La bohème (Seattle, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Atlanta), Lucrezia Borgia (Buenos Aires), Gianni Schicchi (Juilliard, IVAI Tel Aviv), L’heure espagnole (Juilliard), The Magic Flute (Cincinnati, Atlanta, Indiana University), Don Giovanni (Wolf Trap, Cincinnati), Die Fledermaus (Dallas, Kansas City), Falstaff (Wolf Trap, Des Moines), Rigoletto (Boston, Atlanta, Omaha), Madama Butterfly (Atlanta, Castleton Festival), Tosca (National Theatre Panama, Atlanta) and Dialogues of the Carmelites (IVAI Tel Aviv), among many others.
Choreographers
Tango Axis
Argentine natives Jeremias Massera and Mariela Barufaldi are Argentine Tango dancers, instructors and choreographers. They began dancing together in 2007 and have since developed a sensual and melodic style of tango. They are the founders of Tango Axis LLC. and created the shows “Eras del Tango” (2010) and “Amor Porteño” a.k.a Tango Suites (2016).
Jeremias & Mariela have also performed and choreographed with the following shows: Maria de Buenos Aires (Atlanta Opera 2017, Florida Grand Opera 2013), Luis Bravo’s Forever Tango (2016), the U.S. tour of This Is Tango Now-Identidad (2013, 2012), Masters of Tango by Tango Fantasy (2011), La Magia del Tango (2016, 2015), A Puro Tango II (2014), Amor de Tango (2011) and Tango Lovers (2009) among many others. Their dancing in the FGO’s interpretation of Piazzolla’s Operetta; “Maria de Buenos Aires” and Robert Rodriguez’s musical piece “Tango”, both directed by Jose Maria Condemi, were chosen “Top 10 Performances of 2013″ by South Florida Classical Review.
Through the years they’ve had the pleasure of performing the renowned groups, such as the Lancaster Symphony, South Florida Chamber Orquesta, Atlanta Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Sexteto Milonguero, Anibal Berraute Quartet, QuinTango, Guillermo Petri’s Grand Orchestra, Alvaro Hagopian Trio, Miguel Arrabal Quartet, Artango Dance Company, Tango Fantasy, and Dance South Florida Entertainment. Performing through out the United States and in Florida’s best theaters, including the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Olympia Theatre, Miami Dade County Auditorium, Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, Gusman Hall, Coral Springs Center for the Arts, and the Colony Theater to name a few.