2023-05-23 01:38:16
The Argentine resident of Bilbao for many years Leonardo Alonso, who among other tasks usually performs in catering establishments in the capital (La Palma on Saturdays, Bahía…), represented this Monday his didactic show ‘Evocando a Gardel’ at the Telefónica Civic Center Santander, within the framework of the Santander Escénica cycle organized by the FSC Foundation. There will be 30 multidisciplinary acts held in March and May and with free admission (well, you have to ask for an invitation on the web), and among what is announced for the next days there is an abundance of theater and on Tuesday the 30th there is a dance show called ‘Fronterizas’, in which «Mari Paula approaches the body as an anthropophagous and migrant experimentation».
In a room at Telefónica Santander with a capacity for 160 attendees and which sold out the invitations in advance, Leonardo led a quartet with the vocalist and guitarist Pablo Mezzelani (without being aware of our presence, before starting, at the entrance, he confessed to some Argentinian friends who in the sound check had realized that he only had a small voice; in the end he got out of the commitment, although it is supposed to be below his natural level) plus the couple of dancers formed by Sylvia Gutiérrez and Raúl Islas, who used three ghostly costumes to dance purely melancholic, transcending the physical and suspending dynamism without pedantry or imposture, in a way that would please Fellini and David Lynch.
Mezzelani in ‘My Guitar’.
Oh. C.
During a meeting of 15 pieces in 95 minutes and in various formats (from Leonardo’s inaugural solo instrumental to the full quartet, with the dancers) a portrait of the life of Carlos Gardel was sketched (according to Leonardo’s thesis, he was born in Toulouse, France, in 1890, and died in Medellín, Colombia, in 1935; there is another thesis that emerged in Uruguay, where he was as great as in Argentina, which defends that Gardel came into the world in Tacuarembó, Uruguay, between 1883 and 1887) and he began by arguing that his show «’Evocando a Gardel’ implies going back to the beginning of his life, going to France at the end of the 19th century. A lady named Berta, a single mother, had a baby and she took him far away. She says goodbye to everything: affection, family, land… And with the child in her arms, now over two years old, they go to a prosperous city, Buenos Aires ».
And he said that Carlos Gardel soon became interested in music, and recovered ‘My Guitar’, with Pablo Mezzelani singing in the tone of the great Alberto Cortez. Leonardo continued to enlighten us on the myth, evoking his successful Duo Gardel-Razzano, with the Uruguayan José Razzano, and reviewing his Creole song ‘Caminito sunny’, with the air of a habanera.
And tango was reached, a style “with lyrics that are often irreproducible because they deal with the underworld, brothels, although later they looked at more universal issues such as love”. And for this sad tango part it was ‘His eyes of her closed’, stylish due to Mezzelani’s reserving voice but very successful ‘Volvió una noche’, and in the past ‘Golondrinas’. «There is no tango without milongas», stated Alonso, and then they reviewed ‘Milonga sentimental’ (versioned by Julio Iglesias), and continued to thrive on ‘Arrabal amargo’.
Leonardo recounted that Gardel made many films and tango assumed “a sweeter and more refined theme” (and he sang ‘Cuesta abajo’, emphasizing at the end the verses of “the old time that I cry and that will never come back”, written by his right hand lyrical, Alfredo Le Pera, signer of so many Gardelian hits), that the maestro dragged «the passion of the game, especially betting on horses, who called them donkeys or pingos, and like many other tango singers he had a horse, the famous Lunatico» (and Leonanardo sang ‘Por una cabeza’), and that «we were missing something, the waltz» (‘Amores de estudiante, the one that starts with the verse: «today an oath, tomorrow a betrayal»).
The appointment went like silk and the squad affected nostalgia (‘My dear Buenos Aires’) and love (‘The day you want me’, with its deep influence on the bolero). Leonardo reported that Gardel composed a jota dedicated to the Virgen del Pilar (‘Los ojos de mi moza’, which remained in the pipeline this Monday) and that he sang in other languages although at first he resisted, at which time Leonardo he sang the famous ‘Volver’ stylishly and with a jazz guitar, before the full quartet said goodbye with ‘Melodía de arrabal’, the tango associated with Gardel that has always been the most requested by cantaores.
Now, to wait for him to perform ‘Evoking Gardel’ at the Greater Bilbao, and for the time to settle, of course.
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