“Mina … chew?!?” It is a tribute of Elena Roger and Valeria Ambrosio to the successful Italian singer Mazzini, the one that in 1979 decided to be held forever in her home in Switzerland, without giving concerts or interviews again, but who continues to record records. Although for Roger, this show where Diego Reinhold also acts and with a musical direction of Gaby Goldman, is also the work that allows him (2006) and New York (2012, next to Ricky Martin).
The only local actress to win the prestigious Olivier Award for her leading role in “Piaf” -theatrical site based on the life of the French singer Édith Piaf-, here Roger talks about her work on “mine …”, show spare in November 2024 For the 20th anniversary of its premiere, which today travels its last weeks at the El Nacional Theater and that will soon begin a national tour. A talk where Roger also talks about his decision to return to work in the country and his relationship with also actor and singer Mariano Torre, father of his two children: an 11 -year -old girl and a six -year -old boy.
News: How did “mine …”? A work that unlike “Evita” and “Piaf” does not have a linear story.
Elena Roger: It has more to do with the musical, although it is not a concert or a musical comedy. Basically, he was spinning with the vibrations that generated the songs of Mina, which has a very rich repertoire: romantic, dramatic and spawning songs, for his irony. That was giving rise to different scenic situations that invite you to go through different emotions and that allow us to tell who mine is, without her being present as a character, because I do not personify her. I would say that it is a performance based on its musical repertoire and a half dumb show that points to the simplicity of art. Valeria says it is a mischief.
News: They also talked about game and innocence.
Roger: Yes. Because the book we wrote at a time where we were just beginning our careers and where we still connected to the playful. After a work as loaded with drama as “Piaf”, I needed some lightness; and I have a lot of fun. More than before, I would say.
News: The creative process of “mine …” is very different from other works.
Roger: Soon I realized that just singing with a band did not make much sense, that I needed something else -what the public sees on stage; And there we call Diego, who stars in those situations with me and gives me stretch to move from one thing to another. Creating almost from scratch, with only the repertoire of mine in hand, was wonderful. I remember watching videos of her, steps of that time and thinking what choreographies do. Creating is a very rewarding state.
News: You do not usually manifest politically, but in this work you work with Ambrosio, director of the former CCK (today Palacio Libertad) and Reinhold, who sympathizes with Kirchnerism. What is it like to work together in crack times?
Roger: Make “mine …” is a true balm and in the theater we are dedicated to that.
News: At the end of 2024 I also saw her with Scalendrum, Daniel’s sextet “Pipi” Piazzolla, grandson of Astor, for the 10 years of his first concert together. That and the replacement of “mine …” Is it an impasse to something new?
Roger: It is to transit very rewarding moments. After doing so many years “Piaf”, I felt that I should have a free space for other things to happen. But pandemia also made me think of how ephemeral life is and made me want to look a little back.
News: How different is this Elena of that of the first “mine …”?
Roger: Above all, I am a mother and orphan. Having children, having to take care of my big parents and see them die, ran the focus of my being. It led me to accept maturity and see more old age. And regarding my career, I transitted things that I never thought I was going to travel, that they gave me a lot of experience, but also responsibility.
News: How is it as a mother with the limits?
Roger: We are quite permissive. We always ask ourselves if the boys do not bring information – as we also had it – if a “no” in an era, then it becomes a “yes.” I speak in plural because with Mariano we are a team.
News: And with motherhood and work?
Roger: When I was a girl and said “Mom”, she, who was a housewife, was always. Instead, when I was a mother, I was not always, and that was a conflict for me, because the functions are mostly at night that children want their parents. But the worst (the two or three years) luckily has already happened in Pandemia, we take advantage of them to sleep every night and encourage links.
News: After “Evita” and “Piaf” he always returned to the country; And of great, he lived again in his native barracks. Is it for nostalgia?
Roger: No. Barracas returned because I wanted to be close to my parents, who died recently, with only a year and a half of difference. From the outside I always returned because I went to audit for “Evita” already big, with 32 years, for someone from the production that was just Buenos Aires and saw me in “mine …” Maybe, at 20 I would have been something else … I I feel good here; Outside, no matter how welcome you are, you will always be a foreigner. Apart, after several works in London, I decided to return to the country with “Piaf” because I wanted to show something I had done there. The other important thing is that I wanted to be a mother here, near my family and friends.
News: In 2024 he also made a quite mysterious character in the series “The mind of power”, something atypical in his career. Do you have something new in mind?
Roger: There is a film project and perhaps another series, but nothing concrete yet. I feel safer in the theater, but I also like to participate in other things.
News: In his reunion with scaleandrum he said that their relationship with them is similar to an open couple …
Roger: Yes. Because we love each other, but they do their own and mine (laughs).
News: When Mariano said they had an open relationship, they said that it was a mutual need, did they coincide from the entrance or did either of them?
Roger: We both needed it, we are not jealous or believe in love as a possession. I prefer to call it “honest couple” instead of open, which does not imply going to look for sex all the time with another, but to know that if you have something with someone, the other will not feel deceived. The rule is: “If I ask you, you have to tell me.” In general, in couples there is infidelity, it happened to me, it happened to Mariano; And if that is not spoken, concealment and lie appear, and in my life I don’t want lies. Less with whom I sleep and raise my children. That freedom we gave ourselves did not make us with more people, on the contrary, it led us to be more relaxed and have been chosen every day for 15 years.
By Sergio Nuñez
