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Les Luthiers say goodbye to their audience in Spain: 55 years on stage, 10 million spectators and 4,400 million laughs

2023-05-30T10:51:57.084Z

Highlights: Argentine comedy group Les Luthiers have been touring Spain for six years. The tour will end on July 9 in Sant Feliú de Guíxols. The group's founders, Jorge Maronna and Carlos López Puccio, announced last January that the time has come for the end. The decision of the founders (and owners of the brand) did not make the other current members happy: "They are impetuous young people who still do not know the weight of gray hair"


A Spanish tour with 28 performances bids farewell to the Argentine group of musical and verbal humor. 'More stumbles of Mastropiero' opens this Wednesday in Madrid, and will travel through Seville, Nerja, Barcelona and Sant Feliú de Guíxols


It's over. The last tour of Les Luthiers, that Argentine comedy group that offers happiness for two hours, is underway. The hilarity caused by his bizarre instruments and his puns wrapped in a refined musical and scenic technique will give way to the discomfort of his followers.

It is the law of life. There will be videos and discs, and the memory of millions of laughs: an average of 444 per performance, before more than 10 million people in total; which comes to give about 4,440 million laughs spread over about 7,700 performances.

The Spanish farewell is long and at the same time very short: it begins this Wednesday, May 31 in Madrid and will end on July 9 in Sant Feliú de Guíxols (Girona), after passing through Seville (June 27 and 28), Nerja (June 30 and July 1) and Barcelona (July 4, 5 and 6). At the Gran Teatro Príncipe Pío in the Spanish capital they will remain until June 25 (with breaks on Mondays and Tuesdays). Before that, they said goodbye to several Argentine locations, and to Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay. And then they wait for them in Bolivia, Argentina again, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Peru and the United States.

More information

Les Luthiers announce their farewell to the stage with a new show

Thus conclude 55 years of artistic life encouraged by good humor in its double sense: cheerful mood and quality jokes. Its showcases hold a Grammy Award (2011), the Order of Isabella the Catholic (2007) and the Princess of Asturias (2017), among other prestigious recognitions.

At that time the group recovered from the death of Gerardo Masana in 1973, at age 36; and later those of Daniel Rabinovich (2015), at 71, and Marcos Mundstock (2020), at 77; as well as the voluntary retirement of Carlos Núñez Cortés (2017), at 75. Although the latter was in favor of the total withdrawal of Les Luthiers, the other two founders, Jorge Maronna and Carlos López Puccio, remained firm as the pine next to the riverbank, together with the four new members (Tato Turano, Martín O'Connor, Roberto Antier and Tomás Mayer-Wolf), who during that long career had accompanied them as replacements during the tours in order to prevent any setback of the musicians. headline. The public has thus enjoyed six years of extension in joy.

But Maronna, 75, and Puccio, 77, announced last January that the time has come for the end: "Our muscles and joints anticipate that soon they will begin to present us with impediments." The decision of the founders (and owners of the brand) did not make the other current members happy: "They grumbled at first," says Puccio, "but they understood our reasons." And Maronna adds: "They are impetuous young people who still do not know the weight of gray hair."

Roberto Antier, 60, who assumed the roles of Mundstock, explains that he has not made plans for this situation because it saddens him: he prefers to live in the present. "And thinking about an ending would make me bitter. How are you going to enjoy life if you think that one day you are going to die? But, anyway, doctor or architect I'm not going to be. Surely my after will be related to my present, which is to give happiness by being happy."

The members of Les Luthiers during the presentation of the tour '¡Chist! Antología', in 2012 in Sevilla.PACO PUENTES (EL PAIS)

And will it not be necessary to prevent possible excesses of the sect of followers of Les Luthiers for this withdrawal? Maronna allays fears with a joke: "The destruction at the Teatro Real was an exceptional event, an involuntary accident." And Puccio finishes: "There are other types of followers capable of provoking greater excesses."

But the possible reaction of his own apprentices: Turano, O'Connor, Antier and Mayer-Wolf still hangs in the air. And what happens if they rebel and decide to continue the repertoire on their own? Something like the performances that Pancho Varona has been offering for years with songs by Sabina, or the cases of artists who play the Beatles, or Elvis ...: Would the founders of Les Luthiers authorize something like that? "It is possible," Maronna ironizes, "throughout our history we have authorized several groups of artists to do the Sabinera Tour."

Puccio then answers more seriously: "We would give that authorization as long as the quality that Les Luthiers have maintained throughout their career was guaranteed." But it immediately states that the decision and the rights belong jointly to the three living founders and to the heirs of Rabinovich and Mundstock.

Roberto Antier, on the side of the newcomers, is sincere: "I would like to find a way to continue. Many people ask us not to stop making this unique craft because they want to take their children to live the non-transferable experience of laughing thousands of people together at the same time."

These days, Puccio and Maronna will fulfill the 8,000 functions, they will even exceed them. Do you have any unique and special memories of any of them in particular? Maronna replies, "I'll never forget function 4,763. It was beautiful!" And then he details those of unusual places for them: "The wonderful Roman Theater of Mérida; an open-air recital in Buenos Aires, before a fervent crowd, when we turned 40; or the concert at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, together with Martha Argerich and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, a luxury we had never dreamed of".

Is this ending a matter of principle? Puccio replies: "No way. We lack principles." And is every end a beginning? "After the end we will be able to check it," he adds. Maronna describes: "It is the myth of the one who is reborn from his ashes, like Felix the Cat." And he puts on a mischievous face, of course. "It's like the snake biting its tail. But why does he do it, if it hurts?"

On Saturdays of the first two weeks they will do double session in Madrid. An exhausting effort for such older people... "It is," Maronna concedes. "But we console ourselves with the thought that a triple session would be worse." Puccio notes: "Laughter and applause are life-giving. In the second session on Saturday they will be reviving."

The current show brings together unpublished works for the first time in 15 years (the recent previous shows consisted of compilations). Maronna and Puccio set out in 2019 with a dizzying purpose: to build a show of category Les Luthiers without Mundstock (already ill), or Rabinovich or Núñez, but that would exploit in turn the characteristics of the members of the current formation. They wanted to retreat through the big door, and that it would not happen to them like Mastropiero when he tried to enter through it: that it was closed. And what resulted? It was three months of sold out seats in Buenos Aires, a performance in Bogotá before 8,000 people, two in Mexico before 5,000, functions and functions with an audience that said goodbye to them on their feet ... Eduardo Barone, a well-known Argentine critic, wrote in Clarín on January 6: "The great humor that has always been the hallmark of the group remains whole. The work of the 'new four' can surprise even the most fanatical of classical training. It would be a gross mistake, then, to go to this show expecting more of the same."

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This last creation is entitled More stumbles of Mastropiero, and links it as a thread precisely an interview with Johann Sebastian Mastropiero, that enigmatic composer who came into the world on February 7, but it is not known what year; Not even of what century. Nor does it appear if he was born at the same time as his twin brother, Harold, because he lived in different eras and cultivated very different artistic styles: contemporary of Mozart, he composed Renaissance and Baroque works, as well as cumbias and boleros.

Of course, Mastropiero always wanted to cultivate himself: "He spent long hours in the library of the opulent Marchioness of Quintanilla, whose volumes he was passionate about." And he was prolific in everything. He had so many children with his wife, that she, named Rebecca, "came to think that not all of them were hers."

The tangled legacy of Mastropiero will be given this year its last garbeo by the world. And when it is over, there will be a last hope in the air: that the videos of Les Luthiers on YouTube will one day be among the universal recipes aimed at widening happiness and sweetening sadness.

What does "luthier" mean?

"Luthier" comes from the Provençal term luth ("lute"). It originally means "builder of stringed instruments", but was later applied to the builder of any musical instrument.

The academies collect this word since 2014 with the spelling "luthier".

The name was given in his day by Jorge Maronna, in reference to the insane instruments that the group intended to create to use them in their performances. With the help of different artisans (Carlos Iraldi, Hugo Domínguez, Fernando Tortosa), the violata, the chelato, the mandocleta, the barríltono, the desafinaducha, the bolarmonio and many others equally unclassifiable were born.

Last tour details

MADRID
Gran Teatro Príncipe Pío. (Cuesta de San Vicente, 44).
Capacity: 1,000 seats.
Prices: between 35 and 80 euros.
Dates: From May 31 to June 25 (at different times). Monday and Tuesday, rest. Saturdays, double duty.
Tickets here.

SEVILLE
Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions (FIBES). Avenida del Alcalde Luis Uruñuela, 1.
Capacity: 2,700 seats.
Prices: between 27 and 80 euros (at 21.30).
Dates: 27 and 28 June, at different times.
Tickets here.

NERJA (Malaga)
Nerja Cave Gardens. Urbanization Cueva de Nerja, 3, Capacity: 1,500
spectators.
Prices: between 60.50 and 77 euros.
Dates: 30 June and 1 July (at 22.30).
Tickets here.

BARCELONA
Forum Auditori. Leonardo da Vinci Square, 4.
Capacity: 2,400 seats.
Prices: Between 40 and 75 euros.
Dates: 4, 5 and 6 July. At 21.00 hours.
Tickets here.

SANT FELIU DE GUÍXOLS (GIRONA)
Guíxols Arena. Avenida de Catalunya, s/n. Capacity: 2,000 seats
Prices: Between 40 and 75 euros.

Dates: July 9. At 22.00.
Tickets here.

Source: elparis

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