<<  -- 6 --  David Wilkins    MARIA OF HOPE OR DESPAIR?

For the final scene, the Tangus Dei (being Tango plus Agnus Dei), the rather Brechtian agit-prop schema of Abulafia's interpretation becomes clear. The projections now tell the horrendous story of those earlier years in Argentina. We read fragments of witness statements from (or, 'about', since most were subsequently murdered) those pregnant women who were captured in order to provide babies for infertile members of the administration. We read of electric probes inserted into the vagina of a victim. We read of a girl -- taken, raped and tortured at sixteen. We are reminded of those thrown alive from helicopters into shark-infested waters. We are forced to confront this horror while the gentlest music of Piazzolla, and Ferrer's obscure idea of Maria giving birth to a redemptive, female -- naturally, saviour is played-out in formal retirement of the cast.

It's a devastating conclusion. Somehow, for those who love this piece, we are always left with a new adverb -- mariaménte (Maria-like) -- but we don't quite know what it means; only that it might mean something rather valuable to the world. It's an ending that leaves you outraged but numbed and, true I think to those original intentions of Piazzolla and Ferrer in 1968, unsure of whether you are being exposed to something like hope or to darkest despair.