Distant relative of Cecilio Madanes (the creator in the ’50 of Caminito, a street theater experience in the Barrio de la Boca, and director of the Colón Theater in the ´80) and son of a music teacher and all -terrain singer, Alan Madanes He won last September with one of the Hugo Prize, award dedicated to highlighting the works of the vernacular musical theater. Alan won it in the “best male leading action” sector, for interpreting – first at the Alvear Theater and then in the astral – to a teenager Frank Sinatra in “When Frank met Carlitos”which also took that distinction in the “best musical” category.
Actor, musician and singer, Madanes arrived in 2015 to the final instances of “Chosen”, a world -famous musical talent show that Versione Telefe here; And after playing the guitar in a band with her sister Valentina, acting in several series and musical comedies, today she is part of this imaginary I find in New York between a consecrated Carlos Gardel and a young admirer something enthrone, who would eventually become In “La Voz”.
The work, beautiful and moving, is realizing a nascent friendship between the two in an NBC dressing room. Mixed situation with popular tangos sung to two voices and in two languages by Madanes and Oscar Lajad (such as “Creole Zorzal”), dancers and live musical assemblies.
News: How much did I know about the 19 -year -old Sinatra in the work?
Alan Madanes: Very little. He had more great, as a singer and for his best known songs. In fact, when I started investigating, I was surprised to know that he filmed more than 50 films, which also developed an acting career, of which I took some things linked to his expressiveness. Although not so many, because his first film role was only at age 30, quite after the kid I interpret.
News: And how did he manage?
Madanes: It was not a big problem, because I quickly understood that we did not have to reproduce the Gardel and the Sinatra characters, but to look for their essence.
News: Anyway, although the work takes place in one night, its character begins as one and ends up being another, where the public begins to see things from the Sinatra known to all.
Madanes: Good that you have noticed that. This is what we try to do: develop that arc that goes from that young admirer of Gardel to that almost friend who ends up singing with him.
News: In the work, you and Lajad interpret two voices in Spanish and in English. A challenge, right?
Madanes: Yes, strange and risky, but I think it went well. The initial challenge was that of the authors of the work, Raúl López Rossi and Gustavo Manuel González, who made an exceptional letters, by the metric, which fit fair; And then it was for the director, Natalia del Castillo, who very skillfully decided to start releasing the song in English of little, so that it does not sound invasive. Situation to which Antonella Misent then joins, in the role of Nancy, the future woman of Sinatra, and who in the end has her peak moment. The work of the musical director, Nico Posse, is also fantastic, because in each fragment of each tango that I sing, there is an entire orchestration and arrangements that refer to jazz.
News: What was your relationship with tango until this work?
Madanes: It was not so much what I knew, but did you see that they say that tango is waiting for you? Well, it came to me with this work. Like my dad he is a music teacher and repertoire singer of different genres, something knew. Working with him at private parties, bars and restaurants, I did everything: a lot of national rock, which is what I like most, Bossa Nova, jazz, some Italian music, folklore and also tango. With this work, the approach was deeper. I could have learned the 15 issues that I sing and point, but I always like to get fully. I have Gardel on a pedestal, although I also like Julio Sosa and the “Polish” Goyeneche.
News: Did you speak English?
Madanes: Yes, but the director also helped me; His assistant, Iñaki Agustín, who speaks very well English and for us is like an actors director, and vocal coaching, Flo D´Elía. Besides, watching old movies, I studied New York English from that time. I know that one never ceases to be an Argentine actor speaking English. As much as they tell me: “You seem from there! Why don’t they take the work to Broadway?”, I have that clear.
News: Would you like to make her outside?
Madanes: Obvious! Although for us it is already a pride to have returned to tango in a place of popularity, in the middle of Corrientes, with something done here and to show it to our people; And if we talk about the foreign audience that comes to see the work, it is also great, because they come to see something we are. The Gardel of Oscar Lajad is the argento I saw.
News: “When Frank met Carlitos” is his most important work?
Madanes: It is difficult to compare, because one is not always the same. I do not know if I could have done this Frank without the above, because one always arrives with traces of the previous one. But it is true that this is a role with much more presence on stage and that, in addition, it allowed me to reach a more adult audience.
News: In one of his social networks he presents himself as “actor, musician and singer.” Is order random?
Madanes: The music is a more familiar issue, because my dad sang when I was in my mother’s belly, because I play instruments from the age of five and because I teach from 15. Music comes with me, it is where I know, but but I feel more actor because that is where I always seek to perfect myself and new challenges. I never developed a way of singing, that is not my goal, but I am looking for the way the character sings, because I give much importance to the performance.
News: At the end of 2024 he also made his first play totally away from the musical. Is it one of those challenges?
Madanes: Yes. In series I had already done some things not linked to musical comedy (the last one was “Cromañón”), but in theater it is my first time. The work is called “Souvenir de Mar”, a unipersonal of Rocío Agrasa, with the direction of Gustavo Pardi, which we will replenish after summer. It is a work that requires more bodily work, acting composition, because the most important thing is the text. I also write and the first time I read it, I not only liked how it was in my mouth, but I referred to my own texts, because of the way it is written.
News: “Souvenir of sea” speaks of a heterosexual kid, from neighborhood, who falls in love for the first time of another boy and who, for what happens to him, is surprised of himself. What attracted him to history?
Madanes: You made a small great synopsis of the work (laughs). I liked it because you realize that sexuality, in reality, happens to you, that you cannot choose it; And that should be a shock. The work does not speak of someone who wants to live its sexuality with fullness and that society does not leave it. That, in many places it continues to occur, but this is not the case; And yet the character feels that he is not ready to stop being who he is, to learn a lot of new things. And in that case, beyond that he does not understand very well what happens to him, he should begin to be accepted.
News: Tell me what he writes
Madanes: I write since a child. And although it is for what I least prepared, I like to do it because I feel it is the most personal I have, where I nake me the most. I write a genre that I don’t know how to explain very well. They are short texts, a mixture of fiction and non -fiction, modern poetry or metaphors placed at the service of poetry if you want, because they are not texts in verse format. Some interpret them as a monologue in front of the camera and then, without editing it, I upload it to my Instagram. I am also working for a book, which Galerna will publish in 2025. I am only at the stage of finding the engine that interrelates them, so that they dialogue with each other, because I realized that they have points in common.
News: What do they try?
Madanes: Of technology, of new artistic forms, of the ancient, nostalgia, social networks, with which I have a love-hate relationship, because there is also a lot of junk content and we lose a lot of time in them. In others I speak of more global concepts, such as life and death.
News: In 2024 he also filmed a film.
Madanes: Yes, “Black Agua”, from the Uruguayans Belén Giannini and Santiago Ventura. It is a love story between two swimmers in a context of sports competition and a fairly strong family relationship. I am the friend of the main protagonist, a tattoo artist who comes to loosen the plot tensions a bit.
News: Like the half -punk weak that falls in love with the character of “sea souvenir.”
Madanes: Yes, look what things are (laughs). Although in this case I had to develop my most jovial and festive side.
By Sergio Nuñez
