The Columbus Theatre
270 Broadway
Providence, RI
November 3 & 4
Time: 8pm
Tickets: $15 to $50
Groups of 10 or more get a 20% discount if you call 401.331.6060 and say the code word phrase I LOVE TANGO!
Box Office: 401-331-6060 or ArtTixRI.com
Website: http://www.operaprovidence.org

Featuring:
Katie Viqueira - Maria
Juan Augusto Felix - male voice
Leonardo Granados - El Duende (narrator)
Raul Jaurena - bandoneon
and
From New Generation Dance Company in New York City
Dardo Galletto - tango choreographer and dancer
Karina Romero - tango dancer

The Company's production combines the power of opera with the mesmerizing beauty and rhythm of tango

Opera Providence opens its 2006-2007 season in dramatic fashion at the Columbus Theatre on November 3rd and 4th with a riveting performance of the Spanish tango opérita Maria de Buenos Aires.

Written by Argentine Nuevo tango master Astor Piazzolla and Uruguyan poet Horacio Ferrer, Maria de Buenos Aires is on one hand realistic and contemporary and on the other magical, surreal and religious. The piece alternates instrumental sections with poetic recitation (in a mixture of Spanish and lunfardo, the slang of Buenos Aires) over music and tango singing by one man and one woman. Piazzolla's red-hot music and Ferrer's inspired, provocative poetry make for a unique and explosive combination.

Synopsis

The story revolves around a young girl from the Buenos Aires suburbs who comes of age surrounded by poetry and desired by many men. She leaves for the big city and is soon seduced by the bandoneon, which personifies the city, the tango and the predatory male. After a brief life of prostitution, she dies and, in a rite infused by the macumba (the South American equivalent of voodoo) she is condemned to walk the streets of Buenos Aires, wounded by the rays of the sun.

A chorus of circus-like psychoanalysts hypnotizes the spirit of Maria, who can barely remember the sad details of her childhood and adolescence. Meanwhile, a Goblin Poet sends his message of love from a seedy bar, aided by Three Marionettes Drunk on Things and, from the union of his seed and the spirit of the dead Maria, a child is immaculately conceived, a new Maria, or perhaps the same one, born again!

Written in 1967 during a turbulent time ruled by a military dictatorship, Maria de Buenos Aires can be seen as a socio-political statement about Argentina and Latin America, as a modern re-telling of the story of Christ, as a metaphor for the story of tango, or simply, as a story of great suffering and hope.

Conductor Pablo Zinger To Direct

The production will be directed by Pablo Zinger, a native of Uruguay now living in New York City. Mr. Zinger is widely known as a conductor, pianist, writer and expert on Spanish and Latin-American music. His critically acclaimed CDs include Tango Apasionado with Astor Piazzolla, Las Puertas de la Manana (songs of Carlos Guastavino) and the Grammy-nominated The clarinetist. His latest is Cuando se quiere de veras, a compilation of Latin songs with tenor Francisco Casanova. In April 2005 he directed Fiesta de la Zarzuela for Opera Providence at the Columbus Theatre.

Mr. Zinger arranged the music for the CD Tango Dreams, featuring the music of Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel. He also created and conducted the show Tiempo de Tango with New York City's Teatro Circulo. In January 2005, he conducted the closing segment of Paquito D'Rivera's 50th Anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Zinger is considered the pre-eminent conductor of zarzuela in the United States. As Musical Director of The Sunday Afternoon Opera series at New York City's Town Hall, he conducted Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos Aires and the U.S. premiere of Pueblo Joven, as well as Lecuona's Maria la O, Roig's Cecilia Valdés and Barbieri's El barberillo de Lavapiés.

Other conducting credits include the Costa Rica National Symphony, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra (Venezuela), the Maribor Philharmonic (Slovenia), the Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra (NYC), the Montevideo Philharmonic and Montevideo Pro Opera (Uruguay) and the Bronx Arts Ensemble with jazz greats Tito Puente, Dave Valentin, Néstor Torres and John Faddis. He has written for the New York Times, Opera News, Guitar Review and Classical Singer and has lectured for the New York Philharmonic.

Katie Viqueira

Katie Viqueira, a brilliant exponent of a new generation of Argentine Tango vocalists, will play the role of Maria. Ms. Viqueira has been hailed as a "hot tango star" and a "diva" by the Boston Globe, recognition founded in a long and successful career that started many years ago in her hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her vast experience as a singer includes working with some of Argentina's leading pop artists (Diego Torres, Alejandro Lerner, Valeria Lynch, and Manuel Wirtz, among others). Ms. Viqueira was awarded twice in the prestigious OTI Song Festival. Between 1994-97, she presented in Buenos Aires with great success her musical show entitled Entre la voz y el alma. After moving to Boston in 1997, she quickly became "one of the most visible Tango singers" on the US scene (Boston Globe). Her first Tango-Jazz album in the US, The Other Side, won great acclaim from critics and the public. Her latest record, Amores Torcidos (Freshsound Records) won the renowned Independent Music Awards in the World Music category.

Ms. Viqueira has performed at some of the US' most prestigious venues such as Boston's Regattabar and Scullers; New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Knitting Factory; and the Smithsonian Museum and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Ms. Viqueira is among the few tango vocalists who have interpreted both of Piazzolla's best known pieces for orchestra: the tango-oratory Pueblo Joven and the opera-tango Maria de Buenos Aires. She has performed at a number of world-class music festivals such as the Boston International Tango Festival, the Belleayre Music Festival, the Rhode Island Jazz Festival the prestigious Chicago World Musical Festival and others.

Juan Augusto Felix

Juan Augusto Felix provides the male voice. A native of Buenos Aires, Mr. Felix made his American operatic debut in December 2004 performing in Die Fledermaus with the Manhattan Lyric Opera. He then went on to receive rave reviews for Cosi fan tutte with the Ardamore Chamber Opera in CT.

In January 2005, he joined Pacific Encore Performances and has been featured in a variety of operatic roles, duets and ensemble pieces for events in Manhattan, Washington, DC and New Jersey. Most recently, he appeared with PEP at Weill Recital Hall in New York City.

Leonardo Granados

Leonardo Granados will play the role of El Duende (narrator). Leonardo Granados was born in San Cristobal, in the Venezuelan Andes Mountains, and studied music at the Pedro Antonio Rios Reina School of Music, founded by his father. He belongs to a distinguished musical family - his father is a violinist and his brothers are both well known wind players.

Leonardo is well known as a virtuoso on the Venezuelan maracas, a challenging percussion instrument of Latin America, and a singer with such groups as Un Mundo Ensemble, Bliss Jazz Ensemble, Edward Simon's Venezuelan Jazz Project and the Seattle Chamber Players. He has been a student of tango repertoire and interpretation with Pablo Zinger for several years.

Raul Jaurena

Few people can play the bandoneon like Raul Jaurena. He literally embraces it and elicits from it the whole range of emotions that this unique instrument is able to evoke. A member of the Giora Feidman Quartet and a master of the Tango, Mr. Jaurena is among today's most prominent bandoneon players. His music pays a very personal tribute to the influences of his native South America and his newly adopted hometown of New York. It combines the traditional roots of the Tango and the style of the Tango Nuevo, influenced by Astor Piazzolla. Mr. Jaurena's music is at the same time melancholy and provocative, bittersweet and tender - it lets your blood boil and makes your feet twitch.

The bandoneon has influenced Mr. Jaurena's life from the cradle. He was raised in Uruguay and his father taught him how to play the bandoneon. At the age of eight, he had already joined a tango orchestra. A performance together with Astor Piazzolla at the Montreal Jazz Festival led to Mr. Jaurena's teaming up with four friends to form the New York Buenos Aires Connection which features Jaurena's tango interpretations enriched by influences of jazz.

Mr. Jaurena's activities are as multi-faceted as the artist himself. He composed a ballet suit in 1995 for the Irene Hultman Dance Company that debuted in New York and was awarded a Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award). As a soloist, he has played with prominent ensembles and orchestras such as the Bronx Arts Ensemble and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1998, he arranged a series of works for Yo Yo Ma and the two played a tango concert together that was a great success. He has performed at the White House and in the great Celebrate Buenos Aires festival at the Winter Garden of New York's World Financial Center.

Choregrapher Dardo Galletto

Dardo Galletto is the tango choreographer and also dances in the production along with Karina Romero. The Artistic Director of New Generation Dance Company in New York City, Mr. Galletto sees his work as overcoming cross-cultural barriers and tango stereotypes generally associated with the slums of Buenos Aires, the cabaret and the French salon.

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