The news struck the unexpected. After 55 years of an impeccable career, Les Luthiers has decided to say goodbye to the stage for good. Symbol of successful and intelligent humor in Argentina and in the world, he salutes the group founded by a group of university students in 1968.
Then, immediately, comes the memory of one of its founders and also of one of its most visible faces: Daniel Rabinovich, who passed away on August 21, 2015, due to a heart complication, added to a series of “illnesses” that made his condition aggravated and kept him off stage. He was 71 years old.
The luthiers could outlast the founding mythology of Gerard Massanacreator of the group, whose presence has never ceased to be totemic: more than thirty years after his disappearance, his informal tools have continued to be used.
Masana became something of a Patricio Rey long before Argentina was dripping with ricotta. The group also survived the controversial split of Ernest Acherwho starred in the sketch by The chick said Eureka. A kind of Paper-Eyed Girl in a humorous key. One shot. But the question raised by his death was how to go on without it daniele rabinovichfunniest guy of all?
a talented man
All the more so when you consider that your last two exhibitions have been anthologies, and anthologies reduce everything to talent. In the anthologies the image of work, of the sweat of thought, is left aside. They didn’t hide the self-tribute.
“The person who buys a ticket for Les Luthiers, I mean a very high percentage, has certainly seen us and when he discovers that it is an anthology, surely the majority has seen everything”, Rabinovich told us in an interview. It said more: “We are tired or half-exhausted. One is exhausted from inventing things, e Being able to manage your inheritance is a great thing”.
Looking at it now, with Monday’s smartphone, one thinks he has it all figured out: anthologies are shows that facilitate access, add audiences, and act as tribute.
At eighteen Rabinovich met Masana and who the future members of Les Luthiers would be. At that time they were called The Musicians. This lasted until 1967 when Rabinovich, Masana, Marcos Mundstock and Jorge Maronna created Les Luthiers.
At the beginning they sang – they had integrated the choir of the Faculty of Engineering – and they played. Acting soon broke through, something so marked in recent times thanks to the charisma of the duo Rabinovich had put together with Marcos Mundstock.
Beyond the avant-garde
A possible start was at the Istituto Di Tella, a forge of artistic renewal in the late 1960s. But perhaps they were the only ones who didn’t make style into an empty, avant-garde form. If the avant-gardes remain superficial or serve to perpetuate the species of art, the The luthiers was to get to the bottom of the matter.
The group has made the perfect journey of what happens if you don’t have a calling as an independent artist: They came out of nowhere, performed in commercial theater, made money, won awards, established themselves, traveled and became a brand that didn’t accept generics. Vanity alone does not allow us to reflect on a certain type of show with unique and irreplaceable characteristics.
Aside from his acting skills, Rabinovich has appeared in films such as Who said it’s easy?, my first marriage and his latest presentation, in cards in the wind-, played the guitar, the violin and turned on the “bass-pipe a vara” or the “Gaita de Cámara”, among the band’s other consecrated informal instruments.
The image of a smiling Daniel was replicated on social networks. Messages lamented the death of ‘intelligent humour’. Of him and his companions, was-could it be? – the best of gorilla humor: fun for not having social commitments; irreverent, incorrect and lapidary with mass culture.
“We agree it’s not corny humor. What interests us is that people die of laughter and smiles,” said Rabinovich.
He was raised in the Palacio de los Patos, Ugarteche and Las Heras, in the heart of Barrio Norte. He married Susana, with whom he had two children, Inés and Fernando. They lived in Vicente López, in a house that he renovated and where he enjoyed building new spaces, such as the cellar that he made with his own hands.
Both he and the rest of the luthiers liked that the press got carried away with legends about the band. If you really wanted to know how Negro Fontanarrosa sculpted the paintings, you had to insist and only then did Daniel tell you that Negro didn’t even want to be paid. “With all due respect to him and to us, Les Luthiers must represent 0.2% of his production.”
none are essential
They liked the group thing so much that they did (group) therapy.. A few days ago, a newspaper again headlined an article with Marcos Mundstock on this topic (clarification: he left therapy in 1992). In an interview with this newspaper, Rabinovich hinted that there was no one essential.
“Les Luthiers is more than the five of us. If someone is not there, the function is the same (….) When I had a heart attack and a hip operation, Fontova replaced me. I remember that with the cardiologist’s permission I went to see the boys and I liked the show; I was happy to make a living during my rehabilitation. My institution supported the show, rehabilitation and my salary.”
On a few occasions they seem to have admitted that there was jealousy within the group at Mundstock and Rabinovich’s increased performance. When asked about the matter, Carlos Núñez Cortés stressed: “The role of Marcos and Daniel has been going on for a long time and is becoming more and more evident. There are long periods where they hold the show. Both have a great density of humor and the shows, yes they are based on both. In my case, I don’t feel jealous. I am very grateful to them.”
Rabinovich was born in Buenos Aires on November 18, 1943 as Daniel Abraham Rabinovich Aratuz. At his house they called him Neneco. Unusually, it is recorded that he was a notary by profession.
Les Luthiers took it almost entirely, but he also found time for television, the aforementioned participations in the cinema and the publishing market: he published two books of stories, tell me seriously Y the silence of the end. She was in shows like Nothing is worsea classic by Jorge Guinzburg, and with Juana Molina in Joanna and her sisters. It has been seen inside Tato’s Argentina and, more here, in the series The ownerwith Mirtha Legrand.
-Daniel, in all these years I suppose the working relationship has become a friendship…
–Upside down. We were a group of friends from a choir and this turned into work. Furthermore, a job that has fed us very generously. At first we thought it was going to last two years and we’d end up going to hell…
Old laughs returns to Gran Rex, after the success of audiences and critics of its first season. Friday, April 24, 2015 he would be back on stage at the Teatro Gran Rex. The show, an anthology of Les Luthiers greatest hits, included milestones from The Mastropiero awards, Everything because you laugh, For humor in art and Lutherapia.
The promotion contained the following clarification: Unfortunately, due to health issues, Daniel Rabinovich will not be part of the current revival of Old Laughing Stock. Their role will be filled by the permanent replacements of Les Luthiers, and the show will be performed in its entirety and without changes.
Death is a surprise feast, and now it is impossible not to recall his failed monologue about the little-known period of Johann Sebastian Mastropiero’s youth. “It all started when a well-known critic caught a cold… he referred, he referred to Mastropiero…”
Do you think you are a popular group?
“We are more popular than Capusotto and less than Víctor Heredia,” he replied. Just the day they sing a Les Luthiers song on the pitch, I’ll tell you we did it.
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Source: Clarin
