Search - Astor Piazzolla, Astor Piazzolla Tango Quintet, Juan Vitali :: Astor Piazzolla: María de Buenos Aires "operita"

A bit of a disapointment

Amadeus 888 | London | 09/02/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I love Piazzola and Maria de Buenos Aires, but this CD is a disappointment. Neither the singers, nor the musicians manage to make any difference. This is a live performance and unfortunately the recording is not good (you can barely hear some of the instruments in some of the tracks.) This might be related to the fact that this is supposed to be an operita and the producers wanted to convey the feeling of the space where the action is supposed to be taking place. Listen for example to the Romanza del Duende, which is a breathtaking exqusite piece of music in itself. At some point I cannot even hear the piano playing. Is it because this is supposed to be taking place in a dark magic bar with the piano playing in the background? Even if it is so, it would be good if we could hear the melody.



The feeling I get from this performance of Maria is that the producers tried to get the "street opera" feel of Maria, but they ended up with too much of it. Patricia Barone as Maria is not too bad. Her performance has a rather controlled sense of coarseness combined with a flaming latin american temperament not ashamed of itself, which I suppose would be peculiar to Maria roaming desolate the streets of Buenos Aires. In this respect, Barone is succesful (even though I still get the feeling that she overdoes it a bit.)



I would recommend instead Gidon Kremer's glistening Maria, which is an outstanding performance and recording on an excellent new arrangement by Leonid Desyatnikov. It has a rather classical feel to it, but it *adores* the music of Piazzolla and manages to bring to the surface the treasures hidden in his music. Or of course the original recording with the great Piazzolla himself.



Strange because Milan and Maria do not seem to get along very well, because the previous Milan releases of Maria de Buenos Aires had problems."

An unforgetable evening in Buenos Aires

Carlos Jimenez | 07/03/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On my first trip to Buenos Aires I had the opportunity to see "Maria de Buenos Aires" at the Centro Cultural Borges. When I heard Patricia Barone sing "Yo soy Maria" , I realized that song is one of top five masterpieces from maestro Piazzolla. Patricia was superb and she was the best "Maria" I've ever heard of the 4 versions that I had from "Maria de Buenos Aires". "Fuga y Misterio" is a proof of the great Orchestra that performed that night, that by the way included Astor Piazzolla's son: Daniel Piazzolla on percussion. The rest of the cast was excellent as well.That night of September 2003 I wish that someday that performance, that I witnessed, appeared on CD and my wish come true with this excellent production. If you are a Piazzolla fan you must not miss this masterpiece.Horacio Ferrer lyrics are also great. I've only one concern: when will we have the opportunity to see "Maria de Buenos Aires" on DVD?

Carlos Jiménez (México City - July 3rd 2005)"