María was born “on a day when God was drunk” in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires. Seduced by the tango and the center of the Argentine capital, she makes her living as a prostitute. After her brutal death, she is condemned to a hell that is the city itself. His shadow now roams the streets of the metropolis. A reincarnated virgin, she is impregnated by the word of El Duende-a kind of spirit-and gives birth, under the eyes of three magicians, to a child. New being or Mary herself?

In Geneva, director Daniele Finzi Pasca and set designer Hugo Gargiulo orchestrate the surrealist story of María de Buenos Aires in front of a funerary facade from which the protagonists appear and disappear. Acrobatics mingle with dance and song, two colors dominate the stage: red and black. In the role of María we find Portuguese soprano Raquel Camarinha. Inés Cuello, Melissa Vettore and Beatriz Sayad play the other main roles. As for musical direction, it is by conductor Facundo Agudin, a native of Buenos Aires.

Opera: Maria De Buenos Aires, by Astor Piazzolla, llibretto by Horacio Ferrer

Director: Daniele Finzi Pasca

Conductor: Facundo Agudin

Choreographer: Maria Bonzanigo

Set design: Hugo Gargiulo and Matteo Verlicchi

Filmed on November 4, 2023 at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Switzerland.