With the confirmed definitive farewell of the group Les Luthiers, symbol of intelligent humor in Argentina and in the world, the memory of the actor and comedian becomes relevant Marco Mundstockkey figure of the iconic group, who passed away on Wednesday 22 April 2020, aged 77.
Here, a memory of that captivating figure.
the tragic news
“After more than a year of facing a health problem that has become irreversible, Marcos, our partner and friend, is finally gone. From now on, each of us must begin to walk the painful path of learning to live with with his absence.” said the statement made by his colleagues at Les Luthiers.
For more than half a century – the “genesis” of Les Luthiers was in The Musicians, from 1965, and the group was officially born two years later – subtle humour, music and touches of genius have accompanied us. A group of which each of its referents was (and is) an essential component.
In case of Marco Mundstockfrom his emcee stories to those unforgettable, incredible, counterpoints with daniele rabinovich. The twists and turns of him and the courage to act … All in all, a really good guy, an expression of supreme culture.
An artist who, in the style of other great humorists, rarely laughed (or smiled) but who in his every word – exquisite, with prolific diction, given his training as a journalist – made us think. And full laughter. to pleasure.
Obviously Mundstock’s name is associated (by his image, his performances, his personality, his career) with everything Les Luthiers means in Argentine culture. But just as each of his colleagues came from a different profession – and in López Puccio’s case he is one of the most important conductors of classical music – the Mundstock affair also went further.
Film, television and radio appearances
We will find him again in his film and television forays, actor and pilot. And we will bring him to the memory of his radio programs, especially the ones he enlightened us about classical music, combining his humor, his wisdom and an original vision of every phenomenon of art.
Marcos Mundstock was born on a national date (Nothing less, May 25) in 1942, Santa Fe. And he once said that “my parents were Polish Jews, from Galicia, an area that is now in the Ukraine. They came before Nazism and survived, but the entire paternal family died in concentration camps. My parents arrived in Argentina in the early 1930s, my father was a watchmaker, he learned his trade in Lviv. And of course the culture they brought influenced me! “.
“At my house I listened to classical music, also Yiddish and Italian. My taste for many things was born from that mix. Furthermore, my father loved to tell jokes, Jewish humor and self-irony were cultivated at home. When we settled in Buenos Aires, there were already two Yiddish theaters and few cities had such a cultural vitality. It was like New York at that. And sometimes when they tell us we have a little bit of Woody Allen humor, I think we grew up in a similar world,” she said.
Mundstock admired Woody Allen through and through, as well as the humor of Monty Python and, among Argentines, another genius like the “Black” Fontanarosawith whom Les Luthiers has established a fruitful collaboration over several decades.
childhood dreams
Furthermore, regarding his childhood and youth, Mundstock once said that “I wanted to be an aviator, a soccer player, a Latin lover, Tarzan. And comical. I’ve never had a clear calling. I started my engineering degree, but I didn’t finish it”. And he was an announcer.
But in his student adventures, he had time to get in touch with music, with choirs. And in those meetings, above all thanks to the impetus that Gerardo Masana had, Les Luthiers emerged.
Some characteristic signs of the group also date back to those early times: the informal instruments, The character of Johan Sebastian Mastropiero, the inevitable tuxedo in presentations.
“I Musicisti” was born in the middle of the Di Tella movement, a mythical synthesis of the emerging culture of the 60s in our country.
However, Mundstock feels that Les Luthiers “is not representative of that type of icon. In what used to be a bohemian environment, we were the bourgeois, the guys in ties who would have fun after hours”. Although Daniel Rabinovich had also recalled that it was in Di Tella “where we connected for the first time with an avant-garde Buenos Aires”.
With Masana, Marona and Rabinovich, Mundstock formed Les Luthiers and they presented their first show (Les Luthiers narrates the opera). Then two other essential names such as Carlos Núñez Cortés and Carlos López Puccio would join.
But in 1973 – young, 37 years old – Masana died. It was a hard blow, but even so it didn’t stop the growth of the group which, from that first definition of “cult” was reaching popular dimensions, without ever losing its essence and its values.
“Looking back, I could tell we have made a sufficiently abstract humor and without localisms so that it doesn’t have an expiration date. I will be immodest. I think we have invented a style. Without being something from another world, we look like no one else. Jokes with concepts, than playing with words, herein lies our originality”.
“Something effective to make two thousand people laugh in a theater with an absurd story, for example, of a boy who falls asleep at a lecture by a semiotician”, explained Mundstock on the occasion to summarize the secret of the success of Les Luthiers.
It will take off internationally, especially in Spain, which becomes “the second homeland” of the group, due to its cultural association and the remarkable acceptance it has had.
The incredible characters will also arrive, the sailors of the Brigantino, Oedipus of Thebes, the heroes of Bossa Nova, the shoremen, the officers. And many more. “We don’t work with current events or with localisms,” Mundstock insisted.
There would be the typical tensions of so much coexistence (the case of Ernesto Acher, for example, who since 1986 has assumed his destiny in music). But the basis of the group remained for more than half a century.
“Over the years we have learned to be wiser. Therapy helped us. We also wanted the fights to be more profitable. We’ve managed to make ourselves less concerned about being better than others, to reduce competitive inertia,” Mundstock said.
And Rabinovich’s death was a heavy blow. “A brother has left us. He gave us sadness, anger, as had happened in ’73 with the death of Gerardo Masana. But we decided to continue, even if it was a very hard tear for the public and for us”.
Recognitions would also arrive, in particular the Prince of Asturias Award. And the joy of singing/performing at the Teatro Colón alongside two admired musicians: Daniel Barenboim and Martha Argerich.
Les Luthiers Mundstock himself had his own television cycles (the last, Past of Cups of Telefe) and was featured in films, as a priest in my first marriageas an analyst in It’s not you it’s me and inside too the tale of the weaselsCampanella’s ensemble film.
And when Mundstock was called “intelligent humour”, he was proud: “I like that definition. We honor Les Luthiers. And I would add: witty, elaborate and careful humour”.
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Source: Clarin
