Astor Piazzolla’a opera-tango María de Buenos Aires has been recorded, perhaps surprisingly, many times.  The latest version comes from the Orchestra Filarmonica della Calabria and conductor Filippo Arlia with Ce Suarez Pas as María.

It’s a strange piece full of the sort of weird imagery one associates with South American magical realism and then some.  The plot concerns a poor young girl in a very gritty Buenos Aires.  She becomes a singer then a prostitute,  Then she dies and her ghost wonders the city until she forced to give birth ti a daughter, also María, and so ending her role in the eternal cycle (“Forgotten are you among all women”) that will be carried on by her daughter.  Her journeys and her resurrection are directed in some strange way by a spoken word character El Duende (The Goblin).  Along the way she meets all kinds of strange people and others; a sparrow, a thief, a psychoanalyst, noodle kneaders, wizard bricklayers and much more.  It’s really creepy. Continue reading →