Almost a year ago, a local version of a classic by Russian author Maxim Gorki, Vasa, was part of the programming of the Buenos Aires Theater Complex, with Humberto Tortonese as the protagonist. The opera is back on the Buenos Aires bill, but this time in a theater on the commercial circuit.
Felicitas Kamien conducts this version, created by herself together with Walter Jakob and Agustín Mendilaharzu, conducted by Kamien, which will have four performances on Tuesday 21 and 28 March, and on 4 and 11 April, at the Metropolitan Sura, in full Corrientes street.
Maxim Gorky conceived the character of Vassa Zheleznova in 1910 and, after the Russian Revolution, completely rewrote her. The only thing he kept from the original is the overwhelming character of Vassa, a woman who raised a bunch of useless that seeks to control and protect, in an unorthodox way.
Humberto Tortonese in the main role of Vassa leads the cast of the completed opera by Horacio Marassi, Anabella Bacigalupo, Javier Pedersoli, Mariano Sahavedra, Andrea Nussembaum, Darío Levy, Viviana Vázquez, Rita Gonzalez and Diego Báez.
An Argentinian version
In this version of the Buenos Aires billboard, there is no Russia and no revolution. There is an Argentina with financial crisis, inflation and social unrest, a house on the verge of disintegration and a family business of which almost nothing remains, with the founding father on the verge of death. In the midst of this situation, Vassa tries to control and stop the disaster which seems absolutely impossible.
Beyond this temporal and spatial change, it is the character of Vassa, played by Humberto Tortonese, who takes possession of the scene embodying that omnipresent mother, desperate and on the verge of madness.
The acid humor of the Tortonese
The acid humor that characterizes the actor makes the character stand out on stage and, for those who saw him at the beginning, with Alejandro Urdapilletabring to mind several scenes of the characters they played together, especially in the television series of Antonio Gasalla and they are still fun.
In this work, while her husband is dying in a mini hospital ward inside the house, a few meters from where the rest of the family sits at the table, Vassa, in her role as matriarch, tries to hold the reins of clan, that an inheritance is disputed.
With this work Tortonese is back on stage after a long time and after a painful moment, due to the loss of his beloved dog Alicia and after making the decision to leave the radio where he had shared a workspace for two decades. next to Elisabetta Vernici.
As he himself told in an interview with clarion last year he decided to accept the role after his friend, the Spanish actor Eusebio Poncela, advised him to do so. “Theater heals, he told me and that’s when I decided,” he said.
After meeting with the director of Vasa and after reading the work five more times, she convinced herself to play the role of this authoritarian and despotic matriarch. “It’s not easy to accept a role, because you take on a responsibility. But, from there, I started giving birth to him,” she then said.
Now, faced with the reply, Tortonese will once again play this woman who, as he described “has something grotesque, because work is armed like an Argentine familyAnd he added: “She manages everything and supports the children because of her addiction to money. Vassa has so much character that her children can’t raise their heads, she doesn’t want to release them and controls them with the power of money.”
Source: Clarin
