By now, anyone even vaguely familiar with tango music must know the name of Astor Piazzolla. The Argentine composer and bandoneon master, who died in 1992 at age 71, proved definitively that tango music can flourish not only as accompaniment to dance but as a concert art form unto itself.
No single work by Piazzolla, however, makes that point more emphatically than the composer's lone opera, "Maria de Buenos Aires," a heady, surreal piece that received a rare revival Friday night at the Chicago Cultural Center, where it plays through Sunday. Here is Piazzolla at his most artistically ambitious, transcending tango conventions even as he celebrates them, pushing past the idiom's harmonic and rhythmic boundaries.
Designed to lure listeners with the seductive sway of tango, then take them far from the origins of the music, "Maria de Buenos Aires" amounts to Piazzolla's most imposing statement in the genre. Tango and Western classical music intertwine in this score, Piazzolla achieving in "Maria" what Duke Ellington did in "Black, Brown and Beige" or George Gershwin in "Porgy and Bess": bringing a noble folk music into the realm of extended, rigorous composition. Until you've heard "Maria de Buenos Aires," you have not taken the full measure of Piazzolla's genius.
The uneven production at Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center, staged as part of the city's 12th annual Summer Opera series, made an eloquent case for "Maria," but only on musical terms. In matters of choreography and staging, this "Maria" fell far short of the rather exalted standards established by Piazzolla's score and the musicians who performed it.
Not that "Maria" is easy to stage. Its book, by librettist Horacio Ferrer, tells the ephemeral story of the title character, who epitomizes the spirit of tango and is overwhelmed by it, as she travels the underworld brothels where it thrives. Yet the music redeems her, too, giving her a kind of a resurrection, through tango.
Ferrer's text unfolds in metaphor, symbolist imagery, magical realism and other elusive techniques, which places much of the burden of the opera on the performing musicians. They must give the piece tangible meaning, color and purpose.
This is where the new production worked so well, its lead singers and instrumentalists yielding something close to an ideal rendition of the score. Soprano Catalina Cuervo sang Maria with full-throated passion, her ability to articulate tango rhythm while spinning long, sensuous lines a marvel to behold. Rare is the singer who can walk the line between populist and classical traditions, as Piazzolla asks his vocalists to do throughout "Maria," but Cuervo accomplished this feat seemingly with ease.
When she sang her first great aria, "I Am Maria," she conjured the fire of another dark heroine, Carmen, albeit in the smoldering context of tango. Cuervo's songs of death and rebirth expressed a spirituality not often encountered in tango music.
Baritone Ricardo Herrera similarly delivered Piazzolla's arching lines with tenderness and authority. Narrator Elbio Barilari, who also was a driving force behind this production, found music even in the spoken word. And the instrumentalists, led by Gerardo Moreira and featuring bandoneon master Raul Jaurena, smartly articulated both the harsh dissonances and sweet harmonies of Piazzolla's magnum opus.
But presenting this production in Preston Bradley Hall – with its low-slung stage and wide-open, ballroom setting – was a mistake. The traffic jam of singers and dancers constantly rushing on and off the cramped performance quarters, or clumsily wending their way through the audience, robbed the piece of dramatic focus. The severe lack of lighting effects made this "Maria" look utterly mundane, and the rudimentary stage setting did not help.
Finally, the dancers of Tango 21, Luna Negra and Deeply Rooted certainly sweated to do their work, and it showed. Their ragged, prosaic choreography represented nearly the antithesis of the glamor and swagger of great tango.
This "Maria" would have fared much better as a concert reading, suggesting that the producers ought to consider it a pencil sketch for any future performances. Either stage "Maria" on a level that the music demands, or simply perform the score in all its lustrous glory.
Twitter @howardreich
"Maria de Buenos Aires" will be repeated at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Preston Bradley Hall of the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St.; free (sold out, waiting list only); 312-742-8497 or explorechicago.org.