“THEThe tango is a special music because it was born, at the end of the 19th century, from the union of different cultures. There are African influences in the rhythm and lyrics (milonga, for example, is an African word), mixed with those criolle (of the descendants of the colonizadores) and with those determined by the arrival of migrants from every part of Europe, especially the Spanish and Italians. It’s this one mix to create the magic”. And if he says so Raúl Lavié, “the voice of Buenos Aires” – 86 years old and almost 70 in his career – he can be trusted. Passing through Italy during the tour of Piazzolla Immortal (concert-tribute for the centenary of the birth of Astor Piazzolla)it is said in a break from the show at Porteño Prohibido from Milan.
The Pope intervened
Raúl Lavié on stage at the “Porteño Prohibido” in Milan (photo Massimo Marcolin).
«It is a music that also has its own sensuality» continues the singer, who on March 18 he will be the protagonist of a show in Venice, at the Academy of a famous friend, the dancer Miguel Ángel Zotto) «as demonstrated by his dance which is an embrace, a contact between man and woman. At the beginning of the twentieth century she was even considered “sinful” and it took the intervention of a Pope, Pius X, to “absolve” her. You had a strange parable: you were born in Buenos Aires into the working class, but – after your triumph in Europe in the 1920s – you returned “ennobled” to Argentina ».
Dramatic loves
His first memory? «I started listening to tango on the radio as a child and, already at the age of 12, I knew them by heart letters. Someone argues that it is sad, I prefer to call it melancholy, because the emigrants felt nostalgia for their homelands. Yes, it is true that dramatic situations (betrayals, deceptions) are often told, but because life is like that. «Percanta que me amuraste en lo mejor de mi vida (starts singing I noche sadthe first tango, in 1917, to introduce verses alongside the music, and the first recorded by Carlos Gardel) / Dejándome el alma wounde y espina en el corazón, Sabiendo que te quería, / que vos eras mi alegría / Y mi sueño abrasador».
Twists of fate
No childhood dreams, however, for Raúl Lavié, originally from the province of Rosario. «To tell the truth, I wasn’t thinking of music, but of drawing, of painting. But fate suddenly, around the age of 14, put this path in front of me. A friend asked me to accompany him to the conservatory for an audition and the professor, as soon as he heard my voice: “You must study singing”. How can I do? I can’t pay, I come from a humble family. “I don’t want you to pay me, I want you to study!”, and he accompanied me home to talk to my mother… I joined a choir and – at 15 – an orchestra where I performed in all genres, from tarantella paso doble (smiles). When I was 17, while visiting Buenos Aires, I met people who heard me sing and got me a solo contract for a radio show. In 1956 I debuted with my stage name, Lavié: my real surname is Peralta, but it seemed too tied to the world of folklore and they looked for something related to the voice... From voix we came to invent “Lavié”».
Raúl Lavié, star in the cinema
Raúl Lavié on stage at the “Porteño Prohibido” in Milan (photo Hernan Lormant).
«In the 1960s there was a generational change, people listened to a different type of music and I started a radio programme, The new wave, with a rock repertoire. In the meantime, I felt that I wanted to do something else… In 1965 I started with the theater: I tried my hand at every genre, from drama to vaudeville, but with a preference for Broadway musicals: Hello Dolly!, The Man of La Mancha, Zorba the Greek, The Fiddler on the Roof, Victor Victoria). I acted in more than 20 films, I received awards…»
And when the fatal meeting with Piazzolla? «In 1965 he called me for a show that we couldn’t do, at the time I was living in Mexico… We met in 1969 and in 1970 I recorded all his themes. We worked together in many shows, we went on tour (Latin America, Japan). I sang with the three Piazzolla generations: Astor (ours was a deep friendship, we lived in the same building in Paris), his son Daniel and his nephew Pipi. They consider me part of their family. Astor thanked me publicly, he said that I was the first to defend his music… ».
The revolution
Raúl Lavié with the famous dancer Miguel Ángel Zotto (photo Massimo Marcolin).
Yes, because they accused him of killing tradition with his compositions: the “New tango”… “Astor believed that there was a need for a total reversal because the tango had stopped. He said: it is no longer the farolitoThe panuelito, the cuchillo (subjects of the old texts, ed)… Like all popular music it must be representative of its era. At the beginning it was precarious, the musicians didn’t know how to read music (Borges, for example, liked that guy there, the one from the guappi era). The 1940s were very different from the 20s: there were already orchestras, arrangers who had studied… Yet the young audience began to move away: Elvis Presley and Paul Anka arrived. Astor saw that there was a need for a makeover. He tried to escape her fate by coming to Europe to study classical music with Nadia Boulanger, but it was she who told him to return to tango and bandoneón. He was right: today in the major concert halls of the world Piazzolla is played on a par with Schumann or Brahms».
Wonderful and relentless
What was the genius like up close? «With friends wonderful, with enemies implacable. He had Italian blood and was quarrelsome, as you sometimes are.’ Do we conclude by indicating the tangos that everyone should know? «Nostalgia, Naranjo en flor. And all of Piazzolla’s…”.
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