The Art of Tango

By Stella Joseph-Jarecki Enquiries

Note: A ticket was supplied by the artist in expectation of a review on the blog. No further payment was made.

On Saturday 31 May, soprano Ayşe Göknur Shanal presented The Art of Tango, a passionate and wildly entertaining concert at Melbourne Recital Centre. She was joined in the Primrose Potter Salon by Matthew Tsalidis on violin, Karella Mitchell on cello and Cheryl Oxley on piano.

There were two more stars on the roster: tango dancers Quin Nguyen and Alexey Moskov. They emerged every few songs with Quin in a new outfit, with both dancers slinking across the stage with easy confidence and sinewy grace.

The program included seven songs by Astor Piazzolla and compositions by Gardel, Ginastera, Gade, Canaro, and Farres. The whole concert reminded me so much of a friend of mine who would have been obsessed with the flair, the dancing, the beautiful clothes, and most of all, Ayşe’s breathtaking voice.

Ayşe is classically trained and boy, can you tell. The Salon is a wonderful small performance space with very resonant properties. From the first song, Piazzolla and Ferrer’s Balada Para Mi Muerte, Ayşe took assured control of the room with captivating stage presence and excellent diction. This composition had the heightened emotion of a Mexican telenovela – including a spoken word section which could easily have veered into ‘cheesy’ territory, but didn’t.

When she moved into the operatic section of her upper register, it was something to behold. To be frank, at times she nearly blew the audience’s ears clean off. (This is a compliment.)

The ensemble played with tight unity and communication. Ayşe took the time to explain the meaning of the song before each piece, which I greatly appreciated.

When we came to a particular piece in the program, Ayşe shared that she’d programmed the entire concert around this song. Invierno Porteño is Piazzolla’s answer to Vivaldi’s incredibly inspiring Four Seasons. You might not know it by name, but its melody is truly iconic (without veering into hyperbole.) Violinist Matthew Tsalidis stepped into the soloist spotlight with confidence and gave an excellent performance with great agility.
By the end of the concert I realised Astor Piazzolla had been added to my roster of favourite composers. His command of drama, humour and heart-wrenching beauty is simply unparalleled.

My final thoughts on this concert are: while musical excellence was certainly present, it was refreshing to go a concert and simply have FUN. Ayşe encouraged us to get up and dance towards the end, and I found myself getting expertly whisked around the room by the multi-talented photographer who was also a tango teacher! She opened up the room to requests at the very end and we had a reprisal of the crowd favourite ‘Quizás, quizás, quizás’, with us all singing along.

All in all, it was a delightful and musically arresting afternoon  of music which truly did immerse in the Art of Tango.