It is almost 60 years since composer Astor Piazzolla and librettist Horacio Ferrer staged their tango opera "María de Buenos Aires" in the Argentinian capital in 1968. The piece is still considered a tribute to the tango today. Now students from the University of Oldenburg and the University of the Arts Bremen are performing it together. Tickets are still available for the performances on 12, 13 and 14 July at 20:00 in the Theater Laboratorium.
Outside on campus, the sun bathes the buildings of the old teacher training college in a summery light on this Saturday at the end of June. Despite the outdoor pool weather, the auditorium is bustling inside. Around 15 music students are having a rehearsal weekend: This year, the tango opera "Maria de Buenos Aires" by Astor Piazzolla, the famous Argentinian tango composer, is being performed at the university. Some of the young men and women put on white lab coats - they appear in the play as ghosts - while others fan themselves. When a suitcase is opened, the conversations fall silent. Everyone waits eagerly to see what Nae Matakas, a student at Bremen University of the Arts, has brought with her. Born in Brazil, she pulls out a winter coat, a painter's suit and a golden tray - costumes and props that will be used in the performance. The premiere is only a few days away.
The opera tells the story of María, a woman from Buenos Aires who has chosen the tango as her language. Her journey through life runs between reality and fantasy: from her childhood and her time as a prostitute to her death and her return as a ghost. She is accompanied by other ghosts who narrate, reflect and lament as the voices of the city. The story is set in Buenos Aires in the 1960s. It was a time when the city was characterised by economic growth on the one hand and dictatorship and resistance on the other.
The Argentinian tango is the real star of the play. "It's rarely silent - the music permeates almost the entire play, including the spoken passages," emphasises Volker Schindel, project leader and artistic associate at the Institute of Music with a focus on "Music, Scene and Theatre". A total of around 25 people are involved in the performance. An eleven-piece instrumental ensemble, in which students play together with professional musicians, accompanies the singers. The role of María is played by Marija Jokovic, who can often be seen as an opera singer at the Oldenburg State Theatre. One of the leading male roles is played by an Oldenburg singing student: "It's a privilege for me to sing with Marija and to work with the professionals. I can learn a lot," says Jan-Daniel Moulai, who plays the character of "El Gorríon", one of Maria's admirers.
Melancholy tones and a special instrument
The musical director of the project is Joaquín Alem, an Argentinian-born musician and composer who teaches at the university and is a master of the bandoneon, the instrument at the heart of the tango. This hand-pulled instrument belongs to the group of harmonica instruments and, with its melancholy tones, characterises the style of "Tango Nuevo", which Piazzolla founded.
For the students, who act as singers and performers, the Spanish language in which the piece is written is the biggest challenge. "I have previous knowledge from school, which helps me, but pronunciation is a problem for many of us," says Paul Sethmann, for example, who is studying chemistry and music to become a teacher. Even Juan López Lemos, a native Spanish speaker from Uruguay who is not studying music in Oldenburg but a Master's degree in Engineering of Socio-Technical Systems, doesn't understand all the metaphors or slang expressions. "But I can often make sense of them from the context," says the student, who shares the role of the ghost "El Duende" with a fellow student. For him, taking part in the play has a special meaning: "Tango is part of my culture and I think it's nice to represent it".
The stage set, designed by Nae Matakas, is deliberately minimalist. "We work a lot with light projections," says the Bremen singing student, who is also responsible for the costumes and is co-directing with Volker Schindel. In her opinion, the Theater Laboratorium is a good location for the tango opera: "Small, vintage and dreamy - it also has a lot to do with the tango". As a Brazilian, Nae knows the Argentinian capital and has been familiar with tango since her childhood. She is passionate about the current production: "I love staging and working backstage," she says. She enjoys having all the details in her head - for example, the exact sequence of the play or who has to go on stage when.
Visitors can look forward to a production that is "emotional, surrealistic and mysterious at the same time", says Schindel. Work on the project began last winter semester and will come to a special conclusion with the performance, which everyone involved is already eagerly anticipating. The eleven-piece instrumental ensemble has played a large part in this.