Press

“Eineinhalb Stunden tierischen Glücks für jeden der Ohren, Augen und Nase hat.”

Die wundrige Sprache dieses Spektakels ist ein Fest von selbstgenügsamer Ausdruckskraft von Objekten und deren Oberflächen, Farben und Materialen.

Hier gibt es alles was es braucht in einer modernen Inszenierung- und noch ein bisschen mehr- Leidenschaft! Leidenschaft, die auf der Bühne zu kochen beginnt um sich dann in einem brodelndem Strom in den Zuschauerraum zu ergiessen. Sie dringt in den Körper zusammen mit den vibrierenden Klängen der Geige, dem Puls des Contrabass, der Sinnlichkeit der Stimme, fliesst durch Venen und Nerven wie die schönen Beine der Tänzerin über die Bühne schweben- begleitet von den sicheren Schritten ihres Partners-, vernebelt die Sinne jedes Mal, wie die rote Farbe eines Kleides, oder das aksamitische Karmin einer Fahne erflammt, übermannt den Zuschauerraum ohne Verschnaufpause.

Trunken vom Atem der Lust erleben Zuschauer und Schauspieler das Spektakel zusammen, werden dessen Teilnehmer, Bewohner dieser Stadt Buenos Aires, wo die Geschichte der Maria, die wie der Tango, in den Slums der Vorstadt geboren, in ihrer Blüte gestorben als Heilige wieder aufersteht. Urbanistik und Unterwelt. Maria- Tango wurde vom Asphalt geboren und auf dem Boden einer Espressotasse begraben. Realität und Mythologie sind unabdingbar ineinander verschlungen und die Handlung geschieht in Beiden gleichzeitig. Die Stimme der Argentinierin, Farben, Aromen, Töne, Bewegung, Formen und Funktionalität der Objekte- alles arbeitet darauf, aus den Urgründen der Seele Übermengen von Assoziationen herauszufordern um sie in einen Sturm von unglaublichen Gefühlen und tiefster Ergriffenheit zu verwandeln. Und noch eines muss man den Autoren des Spektakels lassen,- Sie bringen den Zuschauer nicht an den Rand des Wahnsinns, um ihn dann fallen zu lassen, ihn alleine von Übererregung fertigbrennen zu lassen. Das Erlöschen der Passion erfolgt ebenso langsam und weich, wie sie erwachte. Und die samtene Nacht, und der Geruch von Kaffee, und das leise Flüstern der spanischen Weise,- alles kehrt zurück, beruhigt und lässt nur Wärme und Bangen, wie die Erinnerung an eine Leidenschaftliche, aber vergangene Liebe.

Ein Mysterium, wie wir es uns- in der heutigen Kunst für immer verloren- vorstellen.

Grenzenlose Verblüfftheit der Zuschauer. Die Tragödie auf Liebe und Tod der “Maria” verwandelt sich unumgänglich in eine verfängliche und verrückte Farce. Nach dem Spektakel zieht es einen Tango tanzen zu gehen, spanisch zu lernen und nach Argentinien auszuwandern. Doch tust du das wenigste: gehst einen Kaffee trinken und liest etwas von “Cortazar”...

Within seconds, a shrouded woman has removed a slab of sirloin from her underwear and plonked it, crackling and sizzling, into a frying pan. Blood siphons from another’s sleeves and is downed with gusto by two moustachioed pierrots. Handfuls of dust fly through the air. Knives scrape and pierce the wooden stage. Come the end, the same woman – the lady of the steak – is encased in a giant bubble, singing in an empty snowdome.

Needless to say, Teatro Di Capua’s realisation of Astor Piazzolla’s tango-opera is a visceral, macabre experience. En route, we’re also privy to handfuls of dust, mangles of pasta and molehills of sugar. At one point, the air grows thick with ground coffee, which is scattered by an enormous ventilation shaft, clogging and rasping at the back of your throat

The whole thing teems with animal passions. Sex and death hover over it like flies on dung. Yet, given that its sung in Spanish, the plot is almost indiscernible beyond a vague cocktail of violence and eroticism. A young, handsome couple tangos, quite entrancingly, at the front of the stage. A singer warbles, quite beautifully, in a selection of evening gowns. A goblin-esque hombre – part-clown, part-narrator, part-minstrel, part-demon – oversees proceedings, entering on stilts at one point dressed only in a sparse tangle of fairy lights. The abstraction prevents connection. More help is needed. (I’d recommend either a synopsis or a carefree attitude of acceptance.)

Astor Piazzolla (1991-1992) creatively transformed Tango music in Argentina moving away from the traditional. Piazzolla and Ferrer created this Tango Operita together in 1968. Maria is a personification of Argentinian Tango and the piece is an allegory of ‘the fall of Buenos Aries’ musical soul and its renaissance’.

St Petersburg’s Teatro Di Capua presents this as a surreal dreamlike assault on the sensorium, more of a spectacle than a story, a revelation without resolution. A sequence of tableaux vibrate with restless energy, using every bit of theatre trickery possible. So much is happening on stage at times it is hard to know where to look, or be able to recognise the layered imagery quickly enough. Chagall lovers will recognise allusions and Commedia and Russian clowning abounds.

It doesn’t really matter if you understand it or not, it is a first class show. Argentinian Gabriela Bergallo is a perfect “Maria”, AKHE Russian Engineering Group physical theatre performance is jaw-dropping, Ensemble Remolino play Piazzolla’s lyrical music sumptuously. Highly recommended.

I had little idea what this piece was about either before I saw it and I have little idea after I have seen it but I don’t care – I found it beautiful and truly theatrical.

Apparently it is a «tango operita» by Astor Piazzolla based on a text by the Argentine poet Horacio Ferrer.

It is sung in Spanish with great passion and played by a vivacious onstage band. The score for Maria de Buenos Aires is passionate and congruent, the production is constantly inventive, engaging and satisfying and all the performances are marvellous. I almost don’t want to give anything about it away at all (or possibly I can’t...), It really has to be experienced first hand. Go and enjoy. I hope you do.

This endlessly inventive production starts with onstage vaginal Ready Steady Cook and only gets weirder from there.

The set and prop work overshadow everything else. The show’s programme warns the story is indecipherable, and the music and singing go unnoticed when someone is using a neon pasta-maker attached to the singer’s head. Furthermore, for a tango operita, there is very little dancing.

This won’t be to everyone’s taste, but the scope and imagination of the staging eventually win you over. For sheer mad spectacle, Maria de Buenos Aires doesn’t just take the biscuit: it takes two.

This show has been dividing opinion this month. Indeed, at this performance an entire row walked out halfway through, yet the show closed to rapturous applause and cries of “bravo!”.

The show opens with a fairly shocking visual statement of intent which may turn more delicate stomachs but gives a strong clue as to what is to follow, for this piece is less a narrative, more a sensual poem that could have come directly from Dali’s paintbrush.

Too, audience who come expecting a dance piece (not unreasonable when the show is billed as a “tango operita”) may be disappointed. This is a highly physical piece of theatre and there are a stunning couple of dancers, but they are only one small piece of the picture.

However, for those who can put such qualms of narrative, language (this reviewer caught snippets of at least four different languages, but only a few words in English) and any previous expectations aside, this show has its own rewards in plenty.

To enjoy this show, empty your mind, sit back, and let the experience wash over you, for this is a sensual feast of a production. Visually stunning, with inventive and atmospheric staging, passionate vocals and live band, sultry dancers and perfumes piped in to waft scents of oranges, spices and coffee over the audience, there is always something to look at, something to listen to, something to make you feel.

So for this reviewer, Maria gets a solid four stars. But this, even more so than with many other productions, is entirely subjective!

Maria de Buenos Aires is a version of Astor Piazzolla’s 1960s tango operita of the same name – reworked as a mesmeric and visually stunning music-theatre extravaganza. It is directed by Swiss Italian Guiliano di Capua, now resident in St Petersburg, and created in collaboration with Russian ‘theatre of engineering’ maestros Akhe (who previously won a Total Theatre Award for White Cabin). There’s more: the cast includes Argentinian Italian diva Gabriela Bergallo, and there’s a live tango orchestra (the magnificent Remolino Ensemble) and the ‘perfume designer’ is Nicola Di Capua. Yes, there are things to smell (fresh mint; burnt chocolate) as well as to see, hear, feel, and marvel at. The story is a surreal dreamscape, circling around the eponymous Maria, a Buenos Aires prostitute. Or perhaps we should say ‘Marias’ for there are many: the ‘real’ one, and after her death, the Shadow of Maria – but then also various alter-ego Marias and Maria-ish creatures, including a Maria who is possibly the Mother of God. (Yes, it’s the good old virgin/whore dichotomy!) The Marias encounter all sorts of characters in their journey through life and death – members of the Buenos Aires underworld, in both senses of that word. The story is held together (in as much as a dream can ever be ‘held’) by a ranting poet-narrator cum duende, or carnival devil, a ringmaster who manipulates the characters like puppets. The Akhe touch is obvious: the stage is a glorious mess, filled with surreally-shaped furniture, puppets, fairy lights, tools, and clusters of objects – domestic or otherwise. Heads pop up from holes; large ticker-tape banners are painted live on stage; substances are scattered or poured or sprayed around the stage and mopped up carelessly. The carnival motif threads through the whole piece, which is like one big dark and dangerous Day of the Dead celebration, replete with masks, painted faces, shrines, and coffin-like containers. And all the while the band plays on, Piazzolla’s exquisite music a celestial counterbalance to the hellish confusion all around. It is a pleasure to see such an unashamedly extravagant theatre- of-the-senses on an Edinburghh stage – this sort of exuberant excess has been missing from the Fringe for the past few years, so is very welcome. Theatre that goes straight to the guts – a mad mess, but a glorious success. Viva Maria!

Even if your Spanish is non-existent (and perhaps especially if your Spanish is non-existent) the evocative tango music that pervades throughout this bizarre and at times visually breathtaking show is the true driving force of the piece. In a place as drizzly as Edinburghh, this MTM Award nominated show uses stunning songs and a three-piece band to blissfully transport you to the sensuous sunshine of Latin America.

A programme note warns audience members going into this anarchic reinterpretation of Astor Piazzolla’s already surreal 1968 ‘tango opera’ not to worry about following any sort of narrative. Thus released, you’re free to let teeming chaos wash over you. Loosely, this is about Maria, the spirit of Argentine Tango, distilled here into the voluptuous, corseted form of Argentine chanteuse Gabriela Bergallo. Really, it’s a full-throated love song to the passionate, pungent corners of Buenos Aires. Russian Fringe First winners Akhe play assorted lascivious citizens with their characteristically malevolent clowning, the accordion-led live music snakes and charms and, at times, heady gusts of garlic, freshly-ground coffee or frying steak fill the auditorium. And there is tango, whip-sharp-sexy tango. That initial surrender is necessary: this production wants to overpower you, wonderfully. Let it, and you won’t regret it.

«Consider Maria de Buenos Aires, operita from 1968 by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla. It concerns a young woman so seduced by tango music that she becomes a prostitute, but who is eventually resurrected from spiritual death by giving birth to a new self. The surreal source material has been freely adapted by Teatro Di Capua, based in St. Petersburg».

«The sow is by Piazzolla’s music, played by the four-piece Ensemble Remolino and vocals from Gabriela Bergllo as Maria. Giuliano Di Capua plays the narrator, identified as «the Spirit of Buenos Aires», while the striking, raven- haired Ilona Markarova makes a strong impression as a gypsy-like street singer».

«Forget conventional narrative logic. The real attraction of this multidisciplinary production has more to do with design than plot or performance... This is where Maxim Kuznetzov and Roman Zhdanov’s muscular, clownish stooges, some clever costumes and props, and a setting – a large, mobile platform with a rectangular hole in the middle – that’s continually being reconfigured....»

«Do not expect to understand the text or to follow a linear story, warns Russia’s Teatro Di Capua in the programme notes. Which is just as well, because you could wear out valuable brain cells trying to figure this one out. Billed as a tango operita, Maria de Buenos Aires is 90 minutes of relentless activity. At no point are there fewer than three things happening at once. Some of the action is pure, joyful entertainment: the music of superb live band Remolino; the stunning tango dancing; the beautiful voice of street singer Ilona Markarova».

«Some moments, though, such as the remarkable closing image of Maria inside a giant bubble, have their own stand-alone appeal».